


all our lies

by princesskay



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Breaking Up & Making Up, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Emotional Baggage, Falling In Love, Heavy Angst, Heteronormativity, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Semi-Public Sex, Slurs, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 55,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25512343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princesskay/pseuds/princesskay
Summary: 1975: A dimly lit encounter in a dive-bar bathroom between two strangers portrays itself as an anomalous deceit never meant to be repeated.1978: Three years later, Holden is looking into the eyes of the man he promised himself he'd learn to forget and agreeing to be his new partner.Life will never be the same again.
Relationships: Holden Ford/Bill Tench
Comments: 185
Kudos: 187





	1. prurient infractions

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from LoveIsLove over on tumblr. Huge shout-out. This is one of the most vulnerable, visceral, heart-rending things I've ever written and I'm damn proud of it ❤

**September, 1975**

**Quantico, Virginia**

Holden almost doesn’t go to the bar that night. 

He’s sitting in his cubicle, filling out the last of the reports on the Ferguson case when another member of the team, David, pops his head in. 

“You want to go to Richie’s tonight with the rest of us?”

“What’s that?”

“Dive bar.” David says, his head cocking curiously. “How long since you moved back here?”

“Only a couple weeks. It’s not really my scene.”

“Well, you should come. You’re the star of the show after all.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Holden, man. You talked an insane person off the ledge today. A legitimately crazy person. And nobody died.” David says, spreading his hand in disbelief. “Live a little, will you?”

“Okay, fine.” 

“Great.” David says, rapping his knuckles on the wall of the cubicle. “We should all be over there around seven. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“See you then.”

David disappears from the doorway, and Holden can hear him approaching the agent in the cubicle across the hallway. He turns back to his report, rubbing a hand over his forehead. 

He spent five years as a brick agent in Detroit before accepting a job offer in hostage negotiation and moving back to Fredericksburg, but he’d never integrated into the youth bar scene up in Michigan. He’d had a few hook-ups, nothing spectacular. No steady girlfriend. 

He wonders if he should try to get a girlfriend now that he’s in the FBI’s backyard again. He’d been nervous enough about his sexuality when he was hundreds of miles away from the searing eyes of the brass, and that sense of dread isn’t about to lift now that he’s working in Quantico. At any rate, going out for a drink with the other agents and fulfilling some kind of stereotypical, macho-man role could do him a lot of favors as far as appearances go. 

That evening, Holden follows the directions David had given him to Richie’s. Street parking is scarce, and he’s forced to leave his car a few blocks over and walk the rest of the way. The bar is a lot smaller than he had expected, no more than a room the size of his apartment tucked into the corner of a red brick building in downtown Fredericksburg. Beyond the black painted door with its ancient, brass handle, the interior is dimly lit and poorly ventilated. A haze of cigarette smoke clogs the stifled air, and raucous conversation melds into a dull roar over the upbeat tunes playing from a rainbow colored jukebox in the corner. 

Holden carefully picks his way through the crowd until he finds David and a few other guys from hostage negotiation jovially conversing with a cluster of other task force members from the Ferguson case. Holden doesn’t recognize several of them since most of his work had been conducted inside a secluded truck with headphones over his ears. He knows that a few other law enforcement divisions got involved since Ferguson had warrants pending and more than a few psychiatric visits under his belt. 

He quickly tries to assess the older men’s faces as David waves him over, shouting, “There he is! The man of the hour.” 

All eyes turn towards Holden as David throws an arm around his shoulders and pulls him into the crowd. 

“You’re late to your own party, man.” David says, giving him a friendly jostle. 

“Sorry. I couldn’t find parking.” 

David laughs. “Guys, this is Holden Ford, hostage negotiator extraordinaire.”

Holden feels his cheeks growing hotter in the cramped atmosphere of the bar as the men keenly observe him, an agent probably half their age, who’d managed to successfully negotiate with a schizophrenic hostage taker.

“Well, it was a group effort.” Holden says, managing a weak smile. 

There’s a beat of terse silence before the tension melts away. Each man introduces himself, and Holden respectfully shakes their hands. There’s a US Marshal, a deputy sheriff, and the SWAT leader, a collection of head honchos that are attracting a buzz of attention from the other more junior members of the task force. 

Holden gets dragged to a nearby table that the group is inhabiting, sandwiched between David and Fitz Milton, the SWAT chief. David cajoles him into rehashing the entire story of his conversation with Ferguson, and he’s forced to shout the details over the clamor of boisterous conversation and the din of rock music. 

The group leans forward in rapt attention. Most of them had been on the perimeter of the house where Ferguson trapped his neighbor’s family for the entirety of three days, and hadn’t heard any of the man’s psychotic rambling about the apocalypse that Holden had been tasked with negotiating with. Without any embellishment, the story is intense and dramatic. 

“What a fucked up dude.” Fitz says, when Holden finishes explaining how he managed to get Ferguson out of the house. “It’s almost a pity my team didn’t get to take out that worthless sack of shit.”

“No one died. That’s my goal as a hostage negotiator.” 

Fitz shakes his head and takes a swig of his beer. “Well, it’s not mine. I’ve done my job when I relieve the world of one more shitbag.” 

Holden winces, cutting a glance away from Fitz’s moody masculinity and leaking testosterone. The conversation continues around him as he searches for an escape, combing the bar for a friendly face or even a small perch out of the fray. As his gaze wanders down toward the end of the bar, the choked discomfort in his throat tightens at the sight of another pair of eyes looking directly back at him. 

Standing alone amongst the crowd of other patrons, the man at the end of the bar is tall with broad, bulky shoulders that hunch over his half-drunk beer. His hair, which looks to have once been raven black, is shot through with silver and is neatly trimmed into a flat, military style. Even from this distance, Holden can see that his eyes are pale blue, cutting past the haze of cigarette smoke pouring from his stern mouth. 

Holden swallows hard as the thousand yard stare echoes down into his bones. He’s never seen the other man before, but he has the distinct feeling that the gaze is currently dissecting his posture, his appearance, and his discomfort inside of this group of strictly heterosexual, brusquely masculine men. 

Holden tries to look away and return himself to the conversation, but his gaze keeps wandering away to the handsome stranger at the bar. The man isn’t drinking with anyone else, but he’s approached a few times by other members of the task force with whom he seems friendly.

“Do you know who that is?” Holden whispers to David. 

“Who?” David asks, squinting across the bar. 

“That guy at the bar. Is he part of the task force?”

“Yeah, I think so. I don’t know his name.” David says, “I think he’s from Behavioral Science?”

“Behavioral Science?” 

“Yeah, you know. The head shrink guys.”

Before Holden can press further, David turns back to the conversation. Holden discreetly withdraws himself from the table, and wanders over to the bar. Holding his empty beer mug in his hand, he waits in line behind a group of young women. 

The bartender gets another drink for the handsome head-shrink agent before circling back around to wait on the girls. Holden’s stomach flips as he makes eye contact with the stranger again through a cloud of cigarette smoke. He quickly looks away, warning himself to stop jumping to conclusions. Maybe he’s imagining things. The man looks far too much like the rest of the task force to be even a little bit homosexual. 

When the group of girls in front of Holden moves back to their table, he opens his mouth to put in his order, but the bartender slides a martini over to him. 

“I didn’t order this.” Holden says. 

“No.” The bartender says, appearing indifferent and waving a hand at the stranger across the bar. “Your friend over there did. He said you're having a big night and congratulations.”

Holden’s mouth slips open as the bartender walks away to wait on the next customer. He stares blankly at the martini before shifting his gaze across the bar. The man lifts his beer in acknowledgement, and takes a purposeful sip. 

Taking the martini from the bar, Holden brings the glass to his lips. The sharp flavor cuts past the anxious thickness in the back of his throat and splashes down into his belly where his leaping conclusions and nervous anticipation are beginning to coalesce.

Without consciously telling himself to do so, Holden pushes his way through the crowd toward the other end of the bar. His heart is pounding, veins alive with sudden exhilaration. Even as he moves past the other customers crowded around the bar, his brain is screaming that he isn’t this person, he doesn’t do these kinds of things. He’s not a whore who hooks up with the first random stranger who buys him a drink at a dive bar, and he isn’t someone who risks his reputation and livelihood for a few moments of satisfaction, no matter how lonely he’s been since moving back to Virginia. But he keeps walking. 

As he draws closer, the man leaves his beer on the bar, and saunters into the crowd. 

For a moment, Holden thinks about stopping and leaving. He should just walk away from this blatant invitation, but he’s already leaving his martini on the bar beside the stranger’s beer and following his shadowy outline through the crowd. 

Holden hangs back until they reach the back of the bar where a narrow hallway houses the bathrooms. Ahead of him, the stranger slips into the men’s room. He stands under the flicker of the dim, overhead lightbulb casting jaundiced shadows along the hall for a long moment with indecision writhing in his belly. A glance back at the crowded tables tells him that David and the rest of the task force haven’t even noticed his absence. Fitz is arm wrestling one of the SWAT recruits. 

Holden draws in a deep breath, and pushes the bathroom door open. As he slips inside, the heavy, wooden door sinks shut behind him, muffling the roar of the conversation and music to a dull thrum. The bathroom is as dimly lit as the rest of the bar with only a narrow row of bulbs over the stalls and urinals and a few above the sinks. 

The stranger is washing his hands at the sink, but Holden can glimpse the electricity in his heavy stare through the dingy reflection in the mirror. Another bar patron is using the urinal across the bathroom. 

Holden’s stomach flips with a burst of nerves, and he thinks that he should try to act casual instead of standing utterly still in the entrance of the bathroom; but he’s paralyzed as the stranger turns around and drags the dangling cigarette from his lips. He exhales slowly, spilling a haze of smoke across his gripping, blue eyes. 

“Excuse me.”

Holden blinks. The other patron is edging his way past him toward the door. 

“Sorry.” Holden chokes out, shuffling awkwardly to the side. 

The guy looks too wasted to be bothered by Holden’s odd behavior. When he slips out of the bathroom, the door rattles shut behind him, and the sound makes Holden’s heart pound relentlessly against his ribs. 

They’re alone. 

Holden’s hands are sweating against the damp chill of the bathroom. He takes a staggered step forward. 

The man drops his cigarette to the tile and crushes it under his heel. Smoke trails from his mouth as he nods for Holden to follow him to the stall at the far end of the bathroom. 

Holden shuffles behind him, head swimming. Every impulse inside his brain is telling him this is a bad idea, but his skin is humming beneath his clothes, urgent need turning from an easily ignored itch to an intractable burn, begging for a prurient infraction. 

The other agent pulls him into the stall by the elbow, and drags the door shut behind them. The lock turns, metal scraping loudly against the hollow acoustics of the tiled walls. Their breaths are raspy clouds against the smothered din of the bar only one cement wall away from this dangerous encounter. 

“Whoa, okay-” Holden chokes out as the man pushes him up against the wall, hands warm and coarse around his hips. 

Bracing both hands against the stranger’s broad chest, he cracks his eyelids open to glimpse cutting blue eyes staring back at him. 

“We should probably hurry this along.” His voice is baritone and raspy, grazing along Holden’s quaking nerves like aching sandpaper. 

“Right, okay.”

The man gives a clipped nod, and leans back to locate Holden’s belt buckle. Fresh adrenaline and panicked need pour into his veins as the belt slips open and his zipper drops with a swift hiss. 

“I, uh …” Holden chokes out, his body instinctively clenching at the sensation of foreign hands on him. His nerves are on fire, and he keeps thinking he should say something. That’s what he’s trained to do; talk to strangers. “What’s your name? I’m Hol-”

“Don't tell me your name.” The stranger admonishes, casting him a disgruntled gaze. “That’s not how this works.”

Holden’s mouth goes slack and open as a warm hand reaches into his briefs to find his cock half-hard and twitching. 

The man grunts softly, pressing closer. His fingers circle Holden’s cock deliberately with premeditated intent, skilled deftness. 

Holden’s eyes instinctively slam shut, but he forces them open again to glimpse the man’s face barely an inch away. His chin is tucked down and his brow is furrowed in concentration. This close, Holden notices the small details in the lines creeping around his eyes, the faint scintillation of stubble on his square jawline, the glistening saliva on his brooding lower lip. He smells good, too, something both earthy and spicy tinged by smoke. 

The last of Holden’s hesitation melts as the quick, determined touch warms him up, gets him rock hard and aching for orgasm with blinding speed.

“Mmm, fuck.” Holden whispers, clutching at the man’s chest to pull himself closer. 

A brief smirk tugs at the corner of the stranger’s mouth.

Holden rocks his hips into the touch, exacerbating the raw ache of friction, and he rises on his toes against the sharp surge of pleasure that bolts through him.

“Oh, Jesus-” He chokes out, the wrecked cry echoing softly against the tile. 

“Keep it down.” His partner mutters, casting him a stern glance. 

Holden purses his lips shut in a vain attempt to quell the desperate arousal crawling through every inch of his body. Flares of pleasure burst against the black of his shuttered eyelids as a building ache runs rampant, singeing every quaking nerve-ending, drawing every muscle taut. He’s arching helplessly, knees quivering, when the persistent stroke momentarily cuts off. 

Gasping in a breath, Holden glances down to see the man sinking to his knees on the grimy tile, his fingers pulling the white fabric of Holden’s briefs away from his swollen cock. He barely has a second to grasp at his composure before hot breath sifts over his engorged head and slick heat strokes pulsing skin. 

“Oh my God.” Holden moans, breathlessly. 

The stranger’s hand curls around the root of his cock, dragging him in. His mouth is wet and hot, loosely lathering the tip with lazy strokes before sinking down deeper. His lips suction, gathering Holden’s cock into a slick embrace, and finding a bobbing rhythm. The wet sound of his suckling and Holden’s staggered panting harmonize in the stifled silence, both of them unerring and determined through the next tenuous moments. 

Holden squeezes his eyes shut, focusing on the pleasure of a complete stranger’s mouth sucking him off. Despite his raw nerves and the terror clutching his chest at the thought of being caught in such a compromising position, the risque eroticism is quickly pushing him over the edge. 

“Fuck, I’m close.” He warns in a choked whisper. 

Keeping Holden’s cock in his mouth, the man reaches over to grab a handful of toilet paper. He slips back into the persistent rhythm until Holden is arching against him, and gasping helplessly. 

“Oh, fuck. I’m coming.” 

Sucking off his cock, the stranger presses the handful of toilet paper over him to catch the slick burst of release just as Holden’s body seizes with pleasure. 

Holden braces a hand against the man’s shoulder as his body bows forward, wanting to crumble beneath the crippling waves of climax washing through him. He presses his other hand over his mouth to silence his choked whimpers, but the raspy sounds that manage to escape through his nostrils scrape loudly against the hollow silence of the bathroom. He squeezes eyes shut against the spasms that roll through him, coming one after the next, clamping through his middle with delicious, seizing force. 

As he comes out of it, he leans heavily into the wall. His knees are quaking and his body feels incredibly drained and buzzing with the aftershocks of orgasm. 

The man discards the soiled tissues into the toilet, and rises to his feet. His mouth is flushed and raw as he swipes his knuckles across his lower lip. 

Holden draws in a hitched breath, and offers a wobbly smile. “Wow, um … That was really good. Thank you.”

The stranger scoffs, giving Holden a glimpse of a nice smile and bladed cheekbones. 

“You don’t have to be polite about it. This is about as impolite as it can get.”

Holden focuses on zipping up his pants. “I still like to tell someone when they’ve done a good job.”

“Fair enough. Do you like to return the favor, too?”

Holden glances up from buckling his belt to see the man unzipping his trousers. He glances down anxiously at the dirty floor, but quickly decides he’s gone beyond cleanliness. He’s about to suck a complete stranger’s cock. A grimy floor should be the least of his concerns. 

“Of course.” He says. 

Leaning back against the wall, the man plies his hard cock from the confines of his boxers. 

Holden cautiously sinks to his knees. 

His partner is more confident in this role than Holden. He confidently grasps at Holden’s nape, drawing him forward as he slips his boxers away from his erection. Clutching at the root, he directs the thick, swollen tip to Holden’s panting lips. 

Holden tilts his head back slightly to get a glimpse of the man’s face as he opens his mouth and lets the cockhead ride back and forth along the wet seam of his lower lip. 

“Fuck.” The man whispers, his eyes slipping half-shut against pleasure. 

Holden licks his lips, and eases forward to take it into his mouth. The cock is thick and hard, pulsing steadily with arousal and tasting densely of flesh and salt. Holden allows a soft moan as he sucks down on it, suctioning the vibration into the shaft. 

Above him, the man groans and clutches tighter at his nape. He thrusts forward gently, pushing the tip of his cock to the back of Holden’s tongue. 

Holden slips a hand between them to grip the shaft and take control of the pace, and his partner allows it with a languishing sigh of satisfaction. He leans back into the wall as Holden sucks down on him, sliding into a fast, smooth pace that’s sure to guarantee rapid pleasure. 

In just a few moments, the man is whispering back the breathless words, “I’m close.”

Holden grabs another handful of toilet paper, and keeps sucking. 

It’s all over in a matter of minutes. One second, the man is whispering that he’s about to come, the next Holden is clutching the thin, balled up toilet paper over his cock, and then it’s all wet and soggy against his palm and he can feel the tremors rippling through the stranger’s body. When it stops, he throws the damp mess into the toilet bowl with his own remnants of pleasure and flushes the toilet. 

When he rises to his feet, his partner is buttoning his pants hastily. 

They’re both breathing heavily in the hollow silence, exhilaration and forbidden, wasted needs wrapped up in the raspy echo repeating back to them against the tile and flimsy stall enclosure. The man’s gaze is less confident than it was a moment ago, as if he’s just as shocked at what he’d done as Holden is. 

He pushes away from the wall, his jaw clenching and his hands curling at his sides. Holden flinches when he reaches out, but the stranger gently smooths lingering dampness from the corner of his mouth with a thumb. 

“I should go.” He says, dropping his hand to his side. “Stay here for a minute after I leave.”

Holden nods. “Okay.”

“You don’t usually do this, do you?” 

Holden glances away, giving a nervous chuckle. “Um, no. Was it that obvious?”

“Only a little.” The man says, his mouth tilting with a faint smile. “It’s fine to be nervous, but you shouldn’t give too much of a shit what I got out of it. You’re never gonna see me again, okay?”

Holden nods again. 

The man turns to leave, and Holden glimpses the flash of gold on his left hand for the first time since the encounter began. His stomach drops, cold disbelief freezing the lingering heat in his veins. 

“Do you do this a lot?” He blurts out, his voice a rushed whisper against the tiled walls which now seem to hold the worst secret of them all. 

The man casts a frown over his shoulder, his hand instinctively curling into a fist around the weight of his wedding ring. 

“No.” He says at length. 

Despite the conflict in his eyes, it doesn’t sound like a lie, but he doesn’t elaborate either. Flipping the lock open, he crosses the bathroom to the row of sinks. He washes his hands, and uses some paper towels to wipe his mouth. Straightening, he casts Holden one last look through the water-stained mirror before departing. 

Holden stands just outside of the bathroom stall, listening to the leaky faucet drip for several moments after he leaves. He expects himself to feel sick, for his moral conscience to rise up with stinging nausea to berate him for not only hooking up in a dive bar bathroom with a random stranger, but for also facilitating someone else cheating on his spouse; but he only feels dazed, as if he took a hit of something powerful and hasn’t yet drifted back down to the ground yet. He’s still waiting for the last fifteen minutes to feel real. 

***

Holden never repeats the bathroom tryst with anyone else, but he thinks about the stranger’s eyes for the longest time. The visceral memory starts coming with a cold punch of fear in his gut soon after, an unfounded anxiety that someone could somehow know what he had done and expose him to his bosses at the FBI. As such, he tucks it away to the back of his mind, shoveling dirt frantically over a shallow grave in an attempt to conceal that night not only from his superiors but also from himself. 

He’d spent a good portion of his childhood wrestling with his homosexual urges and covering them up with his equally potent yet more acceptable desire towards women; and right up until that night at Richie’s, he’d had himself convinced that he could spend the rest of his life focusing solely on dating and having intercourse with people of the opposite sex only. He tries his best to revert back to that mindset, but there’s always a niggling in the back of his mind that tells him he’s nothing like his arrow-straight colleagues or the perfect picture of an upstanding, God-fearing man his mother had tried to mold him to be. 

That niggling follows him for another three years until his term in hostage negotiation comes to a sudden, brutal end. Then Debbie reels him in with that jumpsuit. For the first time in a long while, he relaxes. He likes Debbie, and he really likes fucking her; that’s about as straight as he can get. He’s shoved the encounter in the Richie’s bathroom as far to the back of his mind as he can, and he has a girlfriend. He’ll be okay from here on out. 

When Bill Tench approaches him in the Quantico cafeteria, that notion is abruptly, thoroughly shattered. 

“Holden? Holden Ford, right?” 

“Yeah.” Holden whispers, and he’s looking into a face he’d promised himself he would learn to forget. 

“Bill Tench. Behavioral Science.” 

The man shakes his hand. His palm is rough, yet warm, grabbing onto Holden with a confident firmness and ease that aligns with the memory of them clutching him by the hips and pushing him into the bathroom wall. He doesn’t appear perturbed or even bewildered to be looking into the eyes of a guy he’d hooked up with three years ago; in fact, there’s barely a glimmer of recognition in his pale blue eyes. If there was any, Holden thinks, he might have imagined it, or he’s just seeing the reflection of his own shock in Bill’s eyes. 

He scrapes his composure together enough to explain how disturbed he’d been by his conversation with Peter Rathman. As they find a table in the cafeteria, Bill pulls out his cigarettes and immediately begins analyzing him. If Holden hadn’t been convinced of his identity before, he certainly is now; the way the cigarette balances on Bill’s lower lip and his fingers pinch around it is an exact mimicry of the very first time Holden saw him from across the bar. 

He’s bubbling with curiosity and the urge to demand Bill recognize who he is, but instead-

“I started this thing a couple years back.” Bill says, “I go out on the road and give classes in various police departments from Buffalo, New York to San Diego, California. There’s a million cops out there who wanna know what we know. So I go to them, give them a distillation of what we teach here, and they tell me what they’ve been doing. They learn something, and I learn something firsthand by getting involved on their level. But it’s a big job, you know? I’m up to my neck in local law enforcement.” 

Holden hesitates barely a second before offering, “Would you want some help with that?” 

Bill leans back in his chair, appearing pleased with himself. “Maybe we can help each other.”

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Being on the road and sharing motel rooms with Bill is a very bad idea because despite everything he’s tried to tell himself for the past three years, his urges haven’t abated; gazing across the cafeteria table at Bill’s silver hair, his cunning blue eyes, his chiseled jawline, and his comfortable masculinity, Holden realizes that without a doubt he is fucked. 


	2. learning to forget

**May, 1978**

**Stillwater, Oklahoma**

Holden isn’t sure what he’d expected from a man who hooks up with strange men at bars, but Bill isn’t at all the person Holden had profiled him to be from their single, brief encounter in the bar bathroom. 

On their very first outing for road school, he shouts at Holden for telling Detective McGraw that they can’t help him, but the next time they’re on the road together, it’s as if the argument never happened. He gets along well with the seasoned detectives that they meet on their trips, heterosexual men who are comfortable with their status in life and disgusted by those who fall outside their circle of respectability. He calls his wife every night, and talks about how much he depends on her. When Holden first suggests that they interview Ed Kemper, Bill isn’t interested in pushing boundaries or tip-toeing beyond the FBI rulebook. He’s complacent, not at all the aggressive, sexually powerful man who had sent Holden a martini three years ago. 

Holden keeps waiting for an opportunity for both of them to acknowledge how they first met, but it never arises. The more time they spend together, the less Holden thinks he knows about his partner. Bill does not seem like the type of person to engage in reckless hook-ups or cheat on his wife, but Holden has to rely on his memory despite it’s three year shelf life. And he knows what happened - no matter how hard he’s tried to suppress it, he can recall every detail. 

Six months into the road school tour, they’re working their way westward across the flattened landscape of Middle America, a network of vacant interstates stretching on for miles which seem unoccupied except for the two of them in their rental car. 

It's a quiet Wednesday evening, and they've been away from home for close to three days as Bill drives them towards civilization and the Stillwater, Oklahoma precinct. Holden slides down in the passenger’s seat and pretends to sleep. 

From beneath almost shut eyelids, he watches the scant streetlamps flash yellow light across Bill’s pensive profile. Smoke winds in lazy tendrils from his lips, forcing Holden to wonder if his mouth tastes burnt and ashy. He realizes they’d never kissed during their brief encounter, but he’s been thinking about it more than anything in the last several weeks. 

Bill glances over at him, and Holden instinctively presses his eyes shut to maintain the facade of napping. The radio gets quieter when he thumbs at the dial, leaving the notes tinkling well below the hum of tires over endless asphalt, and the quiet, steady exhale of him smoking his cigarette down to nothing. 

Holden creeps his eyelids open again, and is momentarily blinded by the blaze of streetlamps cropping up more frequently now that they’re entering town. As he blinks sparks from his eyes, Bill catches his gaze. His mouth purses at the corner, streaming smoke to one side as his brow pinches. 

Holden goes still, his belly clenching. 

“You hungry?” Bill asks, casually checking his watch. 

“Sure.”

Holden sits up as Bill pulls into the lot of the only burger joint in sight. 

“Stay here.” He says, and climbs out of the car. 

Holden sits in the darkness of the car as Bill strides across the parking lot to the front door of the small establishment with its chipping paint and sad, lopsided OPEN sign flickering intermittent neon from the window. They’ve been circling around each other for awhile now, but tonight has the weight of providence at its back. Moments ago, Bill’s stare felt like a reading of his soul and every sinful thought he’s ever had. 

When Bill comes back to the car a few minutes later with two paper sacks, he hands the food over to Holden and starts the car. 

“Where are we going?” Holden asks as Bill steers them out of the parking lot. 

Bill doesn’t answer. His fingers flex around the steering wheel, the only sign that he’s anxious. 

The heat of the food seeping through the paper bag clutched in his hands and past his trousers singes his thighs, but Holden doesn’t move. His mind is racing, belly alive with butterflies and not a hint of hunger despite the deep-fried aroma drifting from the sacks. 

Bill drives for ten minutes before they pass a sign announcing Boomer Lake Park. The tree-lined drive leads to a narrow strip of asphalt abutting a stretch of shimmering water that reflects the dying sunlight. The lot is empty except for them, no other visitors approaching the still, vast waters of the lake this late at night. Sunset melts across the sky, the first shades of pink wreathing robin-egg blue and cotton ball clouds. 

Holden’s nerves scream as Bill parks and lets the engine idle. He stares dumbly when Bill turns to him and holds out his hand. 

“Can I have my dinner?” Bill asks after a beat. 

“Oh, yeah.” Holden stammers, handing over one of the bags to him. 

“Thanks.” 

Bill takes the keys out of the ignition, and steps out of the car into the warm night air. The door slams shut behind him, leaving Holden gazing at his empty seat in bewilderment. Leaning against the hood of the car, he pulls the burger out of the bag and peels the foil back. 

Drawing in a deep breath, Holden gets out of the car to join him. He climbs up on the hood next to Bill, and pulls his own burger from inside the paper sack. It sits untouched in his lap as he peeks a discreet glance at Bill’s profile pinched against the soft gale coming in from the lake. 

“All right,” Bill says, finally, his voice shattering the tense silence. 

“All right?” Holden echoes, curiously. 

Bill turns to look at him, his eyes guarded yet blatantly nervous. “We’re going to talk about it, but only this one time.”

Holden swallows hard, searching for a reply.

“You know what I mean.” Bill says as the silence stretches. 

“Of course I do. I just didn’t expect this.” 

Bill nods, tilting his head ruefully. “Me either. But I figure I owe it to you to at least acknowledge it.”

“Why tonight? Of all nights?”

Bill scoffs quietly. “Why do you think?”

“I don’t know, Bill. You never act like it bothers you - or that you even think about it for that matter.”

“Well, I do. And you- …  _ you _ -”

“I what?”

“You think you’ve been subtle?” Bill asks, casting him a derisive smile. “Asking questions, analyzing … trying to figure me out?” 

Holden bites his lower lip. He thought he had been subtle, but apparently not. 

“Can you blame me?” He asks, somewhat defensively. 

“No. That’s why we’re having this conversation.”

They both fall quiet. Holden stares out at the lake while Bill takes another bite of his burger. The colors of the sky deepen, blue fading away into purple, the sun sinking into a shimmering arch against the distant surface of the water. His eyes sting with the wind and emotion rising like a tide. 

He’d spent so much time thinking about this moment happening, but now that it’s here he’s terrified; terrified that he’s being exposed and seen for what he really is even if it is by someone who is just as guilty and complicit as he is, terrified that the moment at Richie’s was real, as real as tonight and every other night they’ve spent as each other’s sides. It’s part of him, living in his skin, inside his body and soul no matter how many times he’s tried cutting it out.

“Well,” Bill says, sounding impatient. “Aren’t you going to ask me questions?”

Holden blinks back at him. “I, um …”

“I know you’re dying to know. So ask away.” Bill says, waving a hand. 

“Anything?”

“You can ask. I’ll decide if I’m going to answer or not.”

“Okay.” Holden says, drawing in a deep breath. “That night at Richie’s - you told me you didn’t do that very often. Was that true?”

“Yes.” Bill says, then squints. “Jesus, Holden. Your first question is figuring out whether I’m a liar or not?”

“We didn’t know each other then. You had no reason to be honest.”

“And no reason to lie either.”

“Okay, that’s fair.” 

“Next question.” Bill says, “I don’t want to be here all night.”

“Okay, then did you recognize me right away in the cafeteria?”

Bill’s eyes soften, and his mouth tips with a self-deprecating smirk. “Either way I answer that makes me sound like an asshole, doesn’t it?”

“Why would that be?”

“Well, if I didn’t remember, then you were just another unremarkable hook-up. If I did, then I’ve been pretending like it didn’t happen for the past six months.”

“So which one is it?”

Bill shifts his gaze back to the water. Drawing in hitched breath, he pulls a handful of french fries out of the paper sack and tucks them in his mouth. 

“The latter.” He mumbles.

“Well, you did a pretty good job of pretending it was the first one.” 

“Thanks, I guess.”

Holden chews the inside of his cheek as his heart thuds anxiously. He knows what his next question is, but he’s been turning it over in his mind for so long that he almost doesn’t want to know the answer. 

Bill eats another bite of his burger, his appetite seemingly unaffected by the density of the conversation. Holden’s food is already going cold in his lap. 

“What’s the matter?” Bill asks, casting him a narrowed gaze. “I thought this is what you wanted.”

“It is, I just …” Holden says, inhaling a shaky breath. “I thought I was ready for the truth, but now I don’t know.”

“It’s a little too late now.”

“I know.”

Bill studies him for a moment before nodding. “You want to know why, don’t you?”

“Why?”

“Why I even asked you to do road school with me.” 

Holden looks away instinctively. Bill’s eyes are doing that dissecting stare on him again, slicing him cleanly open to take a look at his insides. He wishes it wasn’t so easy. Finally, he nods his head. 

“I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.” Bill says, “And I guess it comes down to this - I have to live with my mistakes. That night at Richie’s, I was convinced I was never going to see you again. I figured you would move on up the FBI ladder past me and Behavioral Science and I’d never have to face you again. When Shepard told me who he wanted me to meet, I figured I had one of two choices: I could send someone else from my unit and pray we never crossed paths, or cut past the waiting and wondering and meet you myself. After we started talking, I thought you had more initiative and smarts than a lot of other guys who have applied for a position in Behavioral Science.”

“So, it was a purely pragmatic choice?” Holden asks, trying to tamp down his indignance even as it begins to rise. “You asked me to do road school with you because I’m  _ smart _ ?”

Bill’s gaze cuts back to him, this time steely with defensiveness.

“Come on, Holden. You want me to say I asked you work with me because I still want to fuck you?”

Holden’s mouth slips partially open as Bill rises to his feet, leaving his half-eaten burger on the hood of the car. Pacing away, he tugs his cigarettes out of his pocket, and lights one with a dissatisfied grunt. 

“Maybe I was wrong about how smart you are.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Holden sneers, jumping down from the hood of the car with anger rising to a viscous burn in his chest. “Does your wife know what a manipulative asshole you are? Does she have any fucking idea? I can’t believe how fucking stupid I’ve been.”

“Holden-” Bill protests, throwing up both hands helplessly. 

“No, Bill.” Holden says, whirling around to jab a finger at him. “You have been stringing me along for  _ months!  _ Pretending like you had no idea who I was before we started road school together, acting like you're the straightest guy on the planet, like you could never in a million years want me to suck your dick. But I did. Remember? I was on my fucking knees in that bathroom, and I never would have done that if you hadn’t started things.”

“Oh, really? So now you’re so fucking pure and holy?” Bill says, his mouth curling into a disgusted sneer. “I was there, too, Holden. You came into that bathroom looking so fucking cock-hungry it was like you hadn’t been laid in years - and you suck cock like it, too.”

They both stop, staring at each other with heavy, restless breaths rasping over the distant lap of the water. 

Holden shudders against the warm breeze as a horrified chill washes down his spine. As much as he wants to gather his ire and rebut Bill’s statement, he knows whatever he might say just wouldn’t be true. The denial he’s been living with for years is lying in pieces on the ground at his feet. 

“Fuck.” Bill says, quietly, lowering his head. “I’m sorry.”

Holden nods, his throat thickening. “So am I.”

Dropping his cigarette to the ground, Bill crosses the space between them slowly until he’s within reach of Holden’s trembling fingers. 

“Look, what I really came out here to do tonight was to give you the respect of honesty.” He says, lifting a hesitant gaze from the ground. “And to tell you I don’t do that anymore. I haven’t for years. I still feel bad about that night because I broke a promise to myself.”

“What promise?” Holden whispers. 

“That I’d learn to forget. That I’d be the person - the husband - everyone, including myself, expected me to be.”

Holden swallows hard. “I don’t do it either. I’m not easy, or a slut, or-”

“I don’t think any of that.”

Holden purses his lips against a fresh wave of emotion. He lifts his shoulders haplessly. “Don’t you ever wonder why we did it, then?”

Bill’s frown deepens. “Maybe it’s best not to think about it.”

“That’s going to be hard. I think about it all the time.”

Bill turns his face away, and his jaw ripples with a frustrated clench. In the dying light, Holden can see the silver glint of stubble peppering his chin, the flicker of his pulse in his throat, the faint sheen of perspiration on his chest just above the undone collar of his shirt. There’s something magnetic about him, as powerful as it had been the night at Richie’s; and he realizes the anger he had clutched onto only moments ago was a defense mechanism against something else entirely.

Holden leans into Bill’s chest as he presses a hand to his cheek, dragging Bill’s face back towards him. The kiss is a slow crash, mouths lunging with gentle hunger into one another and slipping open the moment they meet. A moan rises in the back of his throat, deep and guttural, from a place of longing that he’d tried his best to forget, or disregard, to mitigate at the very least. It all rushes back up his belly and chest when he tastes Bill’s lips, the sweep of his tongue coming into plunder Holden’s ripe, pliant mouth. 

Staggering closer, Holden asserts his own tongue, and pushes back against the sharp edge of Bill’s teeth coming down. His tender skin gets caught up in the grazing friction that extracts a whimper from his mouth, but he doesn’t pull away; he leans into the brutal, panicked kiss until he feels their teeth collide, a shooting, echoing pain that radiates through his skull, that swallows up the fainter burn of his lips going raw beneath Bill’s mouth and stubble.

Caught up in the kiss, Holden briefly imagines a version of this night where Bill pulls him down into the backseat of the car, but the fantasy disappears with a cold jolt of reality. 

Bill clutches at his waist, and asserts rough leverage, forcing distance open between their quivering chests. Cradling his cheek, Holden hangs on until the pressure breaks them apart, and they waver against one another, dazed and panting. 

“Fuck, Holden.” Bill whispers, brokenly. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t play dumb.” Holden says, urgently pressing against him. “Please, don’t.”

“This is a bad idea.” 

Bill’s eyes press shut, and his mouth trembles as Holden nuzzles a kiss against the corner of his lips and his cheek, deeply inhaling the scent of his perspiration and aftershave. 

“I want you so much.” Holden whispers, raggedly. “I hate myself for wanting you as much as I do. But I do. I do-”

“Stop.” Bill chokes out, tearing his mouth away from Holden’s pleading lips. He takes a staggered step backwards, his eyes gleaming in the fading sunlight. His mouth is damp and shivering as he sucks in a deep breath. “You don’t want to do this. Nothing is going to come out of it but pain, trust me.”

“I know. I don’t care.” Holden says, throwing up his hands. “I have tried everything to forget you, Bill. And not just you, but myself - the urges I can’t explain, the things I want, the way I’m different from almost everyone around me. I’ve already hurt myself enough trying to ignore it or make it go away. You can’t possibly hurt me anymore.”

Bill shakes his head, uttering a strangled, mirthless laugh. “I can, Holden. I can, and I will.”

Holden drops his hands to his sides, and lowers his head against the sudden, bitter sting in his eyes. 

“Fuck.” He whispers, more to himself than Bill. He’s humiliated himself once again. 

Bill draws in a deep breath, the sound of him tucking away all of his emotions and rearranging his usual facade of calm authority and emotionless resolve. He gathers up the remnants of their dinner and tosses it in the trashcan before marching over to where Holden is trembling. 

“Come on, get in the car.” He says, nudging Holden by the elbow. 

Holden wrenches his arm away. 

“So that’s it?” He demands, “You’re going to acknowledge it and then just go on pretending like nothing has happened?”

“Fucking Christ.” Bill mutters. He ducks his head to gather his composure for a second before he pins Holden with a simmering gaze. “Listen to me, Holden. Say we start having an affair. It’s great, you’re getting off, getting laid, fulfilling these desires you think you need to indulge. Then what? A few months from now your girlfriend starts wondering why you’re acting so strangely, why you don’t want to have sex with her as much as you used to. She gets suspicious, you try to placate her, but it doesn’t matter. The thought is already there. You have to make a choice - break up with her, the woman you could potentially marry and have a family with, or break things off with me, your male co-worker who you’re going to have to see every day for the next God knows how many years? So, which one do you choose, and which one do you think is going to hurt worse?”

Holden gazes silently at him, his head spinning and his chest aching. He can’t scrape together an answer. Bill’s eyes are burning with a quiet rage that says he’s lived through every possibility before. 

“That’s right.” Bill says, his voice dropping to a whisper. “There is no good answer.”

Taking a staggered step back, Holden leans against the cool steel of the car for a long moment before he capitulates with a small nod. 

“Okay.” Bill says, relieved. “Is there anything else you want to say? Any other feelings you want to get off your chest?”

Holden shakes his head. 

“Good. This is the last time we’re talking about this, all right?”

“Yes.” Holden whispers. 

There’s a beat of silence in which all he can hear is the tide, a bird calling out over the wide stretch of still water, and his heart somewhere below, caving. 

“Let’s get back to the hotel. We’ve got an early start tomorrow.” Bill says. 

Holden climbs into the car, and tucks himself as close to the door as he can manage. As they pull away from the lake, he watches the glistening ripples recede into nothing, holding all of their honesty in its palm and gradually closing its fist. 

Tomorrow, he’ll have to burden himself with the same task that Bill has performed religiously for the past six months - learning to forget, until slowly, like a trained muscle, his memory begins to harden all on its own. 

***

Without intention, Bill’s life had become one practiced deceit after the next. 

When he was ten years old, his dog was hit by a car. He can remember dragging Buster’s limp body from the gravel and into their yard, tears streaking down his face. He had blood on his hands. His father came out of the house to see what all the ruckus was about with the ever-present beer bottle dangling from his fingers. In a matter-of-fact tone, he told Bill that they didn’t have the money to take Buster to the vet and try to save his life. Stubbornly, Bill ignored his father’s morbid statement that the dog was going to die, and took Buster into the barn where it was quiet and cool. 

For days, he tried nursing the dog’s wounds and hand feeding him. He laid on the dirty barn floor for hours, whispering to Buster that he was going to be okay. He’d believed it so strongly that he was terribly shocked to walk into the barn a week later and find the little nest of blankets empty except for the stains of dried blood. Running out of the barn in a panic, he came to a cold stop when he saw his father standing on the front porch, cleaning his shotgun. 

“Dad? Where’s Buster?”

His dad gazed at him calmly from behind a sheen of cigarette smoke pouring from his mouth. 

“He’s gone now.”

“Where?”

“Nowhere. Just gone. You don’t gotta worry about it anymore, Billy.”

“But why?”

“Don’t worry about the why. Sometimes, you just have to accept that things change.”

“But why is he gone?”

His father hadn’t much appreciated the questions, and he didn’t allow them much longer. As Bill’s eyes began to well up with tears, his father told him to be a man about it or he was going to get a licking.

The why of things had always been an issue for Bill, and answering those questions was an even bigger problem for a man like his father. He’d had a hard life, and most of it didn’t make sense; the death of the family dog was such an inconsequential loss that he couldn’t fathom how much it meant to his son. 

Bill dwelled on Buster’s disappearance for a few days before realizing he didn’t want to know the truth. It was easier to imagine that the dog had died peacefully, knowing he was cared for rather than suffering what was, in all likelihood, a cold, frightening demise. 

In the end, his father answered the ‘why’ of things without ever saying a word. Over the years, he answered them again and again by drinking too much, by trying to fight the whole world, but taking off his belt when Bill got too stubborn and incompliant, and by eventually leaving without any explanation.

That’s where the deceits began, Bill thinks. The family barn, his childhood pet, always trying to be the man his father expected him to be. He learned to put aside his hurt feelings and move on, to forget his own pain and longing even when he wanted something in his bones. Sometimes, things just happen. People are unreliable. You want things you can’t have. You deal with it and move on. 

When he saw Holden across the bar at Richie’s, he figured the pretty young agent with the stunning blue eyes and plush lips was just another anomalous deceit - a lie he could tell himself for one night before going back to his real life. He’s done it before, after all. He’s slept with men - more than one, hell, more than five - and walked away the next day feeling dirty and terrible, yet relieved for a little while. Eventually, the needs always come back, the one constant in his life he can always depend on to keep crawling underneath his skin, but never before the same witness twice. 

He’d been just as stunned to have Holden pop back up in his life as he had been to see the empty barn on that hot, summer day thirty-five years ago. Suddenly, everything in that span of decades made little sense - his job, his wife, his adopted son, his beliefs, his convictions, his numerous and varied attempts at lying to himself. The ‘why’ of his own life rose up to clutch him violently by the throat. The answers he’s been trying to give himself for years don’t fit this puzzle. The truth is, sometimes people leave and never come back for no definable reason, but sometimes, every once in awhile, they immutably remain the same. 

He does the only thing he can do. He takes Holden out to the lake that evening in Oklahoma for one purpose - if he can’t go on lying to himself on his own, he’s going to make Holden share in that deceit with him. 

The lesson seems to stick. Subdued by the conversation, Holden is more focused on work than ever. He expends all of his efforts into building on the idea of interviewing incarcerated killers, leaving behind yearning and forbidden needs with a decisiveness that both surprises and relieves Bill. 

After the first handful of interviews with Kemper, he convinces himself that the pros of their partnership far outweigh the cons. He can put the bathroom hook-up out of his mind now that Holden knows it’s never going to be repeated. The air is clear, crystal clear.

***

**January, 1979**

**Fredericksburg, Virginia**

In the mid-winter chill, Bill leaves for road school in Pennsylvania on the heels of an argument with Nancy. 

Invariably, the disagreement was about Brian. He’s been getting bullied at school which has led to him acting out. It’s the first time Bill has been faced with punishing his son for infractions that are more worrisome than the temper tantrums of a toddler or the errant misbehavior of a seven-year old. Biting other kids and stealing things surely carry a heavier discipline than being sent to his room, but Bill refuses to hit his child in the way his own father had once beaten him. 

“He doesn’t listen to me sometimes.” Nancy had complained. 

“He doesn’t listen to me either.” Bill replied, “And I guarantee you he’s not going to listen to physical punishment either - not in the way we’re wanting.”

Nancy’s expression had softened to one of muted compassion. “That wasn’t what I was implying.”

He had walked away, then. They don’t talk about his childhood or his father. Bill doesn’t explain to her why he acts the way he does sometimes, or how he feels entirely out of his depth inside fatherhood despite the natural, societal expectations placed on him as a man and a husband.

His stubborn silence, of course, had led to yet another argument more about them and their marriage, which has been struggling to stay afloat for some time, rather than their son. 

The disagreement extends through the following week while Bill and Holden are pulled into the investigation of the murder of Beverly Jean Shaw. He still calls her each night the way he always does, but the conversations are brief and colorless. 

He gets back home late on Friday evening, and shuffles into the kitchen to get a beer. The quiet sound of Nancy clearing her throat from the dining table almost makes his heart leap out of his chest. 

“Christ, Nance, you scared me.”

“Sorry.” She murmurs, taking the cigarette from her mouth to tap ashes into the tray. She’s dressed in her nightgown, but her eyes are alert and far from sleep. 

Bill cracks open the beer bottle, and walks hesitantly into the dining room. 

“What are you still doing up?”

“I put Brian to bed, and I wasn’t tired.” She says, her tone calm yet stilted. “I decided to wait up for you.”

“It’s past ten-thirty. Are you okay?”

She nods, her mouth pursing in a grim smile. “Fine.”

Bill absorbs the response - an obvious lie - and weighs whether or not to pursue the conversation. This moment feels like the opening of an apology, one of many that he should have practiced and expected by now but that he doesn’t have the will to reiterate. 

“Well, I’m here now.” He says, “You should go get some rest.”

She takes another drag of her cigarette, gaze wandering critically over him. “I’m not tired.”

“Well, I’m beat. I’m gonna get a shower, hit the sack.”

“Aren’t you going to finish your beer?” She asks, her tone stopping him from leaving the dining room. 

Bill pauses with his back turned to her, and closes his eyes against the weary sigh fighting it’s way up his chest. Tamping down his impatience, he walks back to the table and musters an even tone. 

“Is there something you want to talk about? Something that’s bothering you?”

“No.” She says, her tone forcibly casual. “Why don’t you sit down? Tell me about your day.”

“Tell you about my day?” He echoes, frowning. 

“Yes. Isn’t that what husbands and wives do?”

“Nance-” He begins, rubbing a hand over his eyes. 

She stands abruptly, leaving her cigarette burning in the ashtray. 

“Fine.” She murmurs, smoke trailing from her mouth to his as she leans closer. “You don’t want to talk? We can do something else.”

He gazes down at her for a long moment, letting the conflict and frustration boiling in his chest grow hotter until it pushes past their argument, to Holden, to his needs, back around to them again. Setting aside his beer, he leans down to palm her cheek and pull her into a kiss. 

She moans into his mouth, a twisted sound of anger and desire. Her hands knot in the front of his shirt, pulling him closer until her backside hits the edge of the table, and she’s pinned in place. 

Their mouths break apart, both of them panting heavily. She stares up at him, eyes glassy in the melted yellow light reaching from the kitchen and her mouth wet and pink from the force of his mouth. 

“I put Brian to bed almost three hours ago.” She whispers, her voice low and raspy. “He won’t hear a thing.”

He kisses her again - kisses her mouth, her cheek, her throat, each movement practiced and intentional. It’s like a staged play he’s performed a thousand times, the perfunctory groans, the grabbing hands meant to feel like real desire, the procured arousal drawn to life not by her presence but by a reel of unforgivable images taped along the back of his mind. 

He pulls her out of the kitchen and into the living room where he positions her facedown on the couch. When he unfastens his pants and thrusts into her, he can’t see her face; she’s just a warm body, somewhere hot, wet, and tight to deposit his needs into. He closes his eyes, and hangs onto his lies for a few moments; but the erotic, sinful desires are quick to overtake him, fantasies swimming and multiplying, producing visceral streams of thought in which it isn’t Nancy underneath him, but Holden - sweet, naive, stubborn, damningly beautiful Holden, taking his cock over and over again and whining for more. 

Afterwards, Bill sprawls on the opposite end of the couch from Nancy. Her bare feet are tucked in his lap. He clutches her ankle. 

Gazing back at him, she crosses her arms behind her head, and releases a long, slow sigh. 

“You should invite Holden to dinner.” She says. 

The remark is so unexpected that Bill struggles to keep his horror off his face. His belly twists with a harsh, dreadful nausea, the weight of guilt. He blinks back at her, trying to casually rearrange his expression while her cool gaze seems to be rending him open. 

_ Does she know? How could she know?  _

“Are you sure?” He asks, instead. 

“Sometimes I feel like you spend more time with him than you do with me. I want to meet him.”

“I, uh … okay.”

“It’s the respectable thing to do.” She says, a little frown tugging at her brow. “Is there a reason why you wouldn’t want to have him over?”

“No, no. Of course not.” 

She gives a slow nod. His chest is tight. He said ‘no’ far too many times. Over-eager, suspiciously rushed. 

She nudges her toes into his thigh before sitting upright. 

“I remember when you used to make love to me like that.” She says, running absent fingers through her hair, and gazing dully towards the curtains pulled over the window. “Like you meant it.”

“Nance …”

“No, don’t tell me.” She says, rising from the cushions and pulling her panties up. “I don’t want to know. Whatever it is …”

Bill frowns up at her, the lump in the back of his throat growing. 

She bends down to kiss him gently on the forehead. “I’m going to bed. Don’t stay up too long.”

He nods, wordless, choked. 

She disappears down the hall to the bedroom, leaving him alone with his pants down around his knees, release drying into wilted flesh. He stares at the fixtures of their living room for a long time after she leaves, listening to the house settle, his desires rising up in his chest to suffocate him.

He thought he had it all contained and segregated from reality. He thought Holden could exist in his mind only as his partner and not some vulgar fantasy. Well, he should have known - nothing lasts forever, not even his own pride. Every last stronghold in his mind is failing, and he should have seen it coming from a mile away. 


	3. wayward divinity

Bill is sick as hell of Altoona, Pennsylvania. The surge of satisfaction and vindication he felt when Rose confessed to what had happened the night of Beverly Jean’s murder is quickly crushed by the grim pragmatism of the judicial system. He should have expected it since he said it himself -  _ it’s always the boyfriend; when you’re lost you play the odds  _ \- but there had been a moment when Holden had him convinced their groundbreaking work in the BSU might reward them with a different outcome. 

Instead, it’s the middle of winter, and he and Holden are driving down the Pennsylvania Turnpike toward Altoona, the same strip of asphalt and distant treelines that seem to repeat for miles. 

Holden spends the first half of the trip going on about the case, their evidence, and Frank’s obvious involvement while Bill grunts his agreements. Once he’s said about all there is to say, they fall into uncomfortable silence. He reaches over to tune the radio to a soft rock station. 

“Is this okay?” He asks. 

“It’s your car.” Bill mutters, waving an indifferent hand. 

Holden drives quietly for another few miles, but Bill can feel the weight of his gaze. He clears his throat, drawing Bill’s attention up from his lap. Their hesitant gazes collide briefly before Holden focuses on the road. 

“I wanted to thank you for having me and Debbie over.” He says, his fingers flexing anxiously around the wheel. 

“You’re welcome.” 

“You didn’t have to. I know we’re just co-workers.”

“We’re friends, too.” Bill says, catching Holden’s quietly surprised gaze. “Or did I have that pegged wrong?”

“No, not at all. We’re friends.” 

Bill rolls down his window to ash his cigarette, allowing in the rush of cold wind over the stifled silence.  _ Friends.  _ Another carefully positioned lie, a grain of truth, a shadow of something stronger.

“Nancy is lovely, by the way. I’m glad we could finally meet, and that she likes me.”

“Yeah, well. She’s always been that way - one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.”

Holden nods, offering a faint smile. “Brian, too.”

“Yeah.” Bill whispers, focusing on the flash of landscape just beyond the car. “Thanks for saying that.”

They’re quiet again, listening to the Carpenters croon about love and heartbreak from in between staticy hisses of radio towers dipping in and out of range. Bill smokes through the last of his cigarettes before they enter Blair County. 

“Let’s stop at this gas station up here.” He says as they turn onto the main thoroughfare of Altoona. 

Holden pulls up beside one of the unoccupied pumps, and turns off the engine. He looks straight ahead, a small frown knitting his brow, his jaw rippling with muted nerves.

“What is it?” Bill asks. 

“Do you think we should get a room?” 

“A room?”

“Yes.” Holden says, shifting a placid gaze to him. “It’s already past noon. Who knows how long this is going to take, and then it’s another four hour drive back home.”

Bill sighs, and focuses on the stoplight at the intersection a few yards away flickering from green to yellow to red. Holden has a little bit of a point. Not much, just enough. 

“I don’t know, Holden. Nancy won’t be very happy, and Wendy wants to talk strategy for the next interview.”

“It was just a suggestion.” 

Bill glances back over when Holden shoulders the door open and gets out of the car. The door slams shut behind him, leaving Bill in the humming silence, with the decision weighing on his shoulders. 

He goes into the gas station to buy more cigarettes and to pay for their gas. When they’re back on the road toward the courthouse, Holden seems content to let the idea go, but the facade of complacency only serves to frustrate Bill further. He’s good at arguing, sticking to his point; it’s when everything gets quiet and dim that he loses focus. 

To make matters worse, their conversation with the prosecutor goes about as well as could be expected - meaning poorly. Worse than poorly. Maddeningly. The man’s self-assured, condescending disregard for their hard work heats the blood in Bill’s veins to a bubbling boil, and when they pass a smirking Frank in the hall, he can feel his composure tipping towards a breaking point. Of all the things in his life he wishes he could change, this case had momentarily been within his grasp to make a real difference. But it’s beyond his control now, and he’s helpless.

He and Holden are despairingly quiet as they trudge back to their car and climb inside. 

“What difference does any of this make if we can’t communicate it to the people who matter?” Holden asks. 

“I don’t know.” Bill sighs.

As Holden pulls back onto the street, Bill’s gaze wanders over his terse profile. The white-hot burn of impulse streaks through his chest to melt his insides. He tries to swallow it down, push the needs back into the dark corners of his mind, but it keeps swelling, rising, fighting back. 

“That was rough.” Bill says, speaking before his thoughts can catch up with him. “What do you say we get a drink?”

“A drink?” Holden asks, casting Bill a worried frown. “Bill, it’s two in the afternoon, and I have to drive four hours back to Fredericksburg.”

“You don’t have to. We could get a room, like you said.”

Holden’s gaze flits back and forth between the road ahead and Bill, a hint of color rising on his cheeks. He hesitates just long enough to make Bill wonder if he’d read the earlier suggestion wrong before he nods his head. 

“Yes. Okay.” 

Without further discussion, he drives them over to the restaurant and bar Ocasek had taken them to on their first trip here. The hotel they stayed at is across the street, the ‘no vacancy’ sign unlit like a bit of wayward divinity. 

A cold breeze carrying snow flurries whips down the sidewalk as Holden parks along the curb and they both get out. 

“You wanna go over and see if you can get a room while I get us started on drinks?” Bill asks, drawing his coat around himself. 

“Sure.” Holden says, “Just one room?”

Bill hesitates. Holden is gazing at him coolly, no hint of crude suggestion or errant desire in his eyes, but maybe he’s just that good at hiding what he really wants. 

“It’s just one night.” He says, finally. 

“Right.” Holden murmurs. 

Bill stands on the curb as Holden turns his head down against the chilled breeze and crosses the street toward the hotel at a fast clip. He presses his fingertips to the bridge of his nose and breathes out a shuddering sigh against the cold beginning to seep past his coat to contend with his heat in his belly. 

He could still stop himself. Sharing a hotel room doesn’t obligate him to do anything untoward with Holden, and yet it’s like they both already know the course this night is going to take, every second, every stitch of clothing dropped to the ground, every stolen kiss in a town that they’ll be happy to forget once they’re gone. 

At two o’clock, the restaurant is nearly deserted. The lunch rush has come and gone, leaving the afternoon crawling languidly towards dinner time and the hour when folks normally grab drinks. 

Bill unabashedly asks for two beers at the bar, and carries them back to the table where he settles in to wait on Holden. Nursing his drink, he swallows back mounting anticipation and the muted hum of dread. It’s been years, but this feeling is one he knows well: stepping across a line he knows he shouldn’t cross, wanting something so badly, reveling in the danger, ignoring the alarm bells blaring in his head until he finishes on some other man’s skin. The loathing usually comes later once the clamor of need roaring in his head has abated, but he can’t think about regret right now. 

Holden comes through the door five minutes later, his cheeks pink and windswept. He tugs his gloves off and shrugs out of his coat as he approaches their table in a secluded corner of the bar. 

“Here you go.” Bill mutters, nudging the beer across the table to him. 

“Thanks.”

“Do you want something to eat? I think they have burgers and fries here.”

“I’m not hungry.” Holden says, a half-lidded gaze drooping over the rim of his glass. 

Bill shifts forward in his chair, planting his elbows on the table. Staring down into the amber depths of his beer, he tugs his cigarettes out of his pocket. 

“Are you going to call Nancy?” Holden asks. 

“Huh?”

“Nancy. I thought you said she would be upset.”

“I will. A little later.”

Holden nods, his teeth pricking at his lower lip as he scans the empty tables around them. 

“That was infuriating.” He says, at length. 

“Yeah.” 

“You know when they say five to twenty years in an institution that means he’ll probably be out in three on good behavior. Free to attack and abuse more women.”

“That’s the worst part. I can live with Rose getting off on a lighter sentence, but not Frank - that smug prick makes me livid.” Bill says, taking a hard drag of his cigarette.

“If I tell Debbie about it, she’ll probably say that we couldn’t know for sure who killed her since we weren’t there.” Holden says, shaking his head. “She’s so idealistic like that. But she hasn’t sat across from these killers like I have.”

“You’re saying  _ you're _ not idealistic?” Bill asks, snorting a laugh. 

“No, not like that. You know what I mean.”

“Sure.”

Holden falls quiet for a moment before gazing down into his beer. “Sometimes, I think she doesn’t understand me at all.”

Bill takes another stiff drink of his beer, and avoids Holden’s dejected gaze. 

“Does Nancy understand what we do?” Holden asks, “At all?”

“You heard her the other night. I don’t tell her anything.”

“Why not?”

“Because, sometimes knowing the ‘why’ of things isn’t in your best interest.” 

“You hide a lot from her.” 

Bill’s gaze snaps up to meet Holden’s. A denial hangs on his lips, but he can’t quite get it out. 

“Doesn’t that get tiresome …. And lonely?” Holden asks, his brow furrowing and his eyes softening. 

“I suppose. But I wouldn’t want her to know what we do. I wouldn’t want that hanging over her head at night, or when she’s home alone trying to take care of our son. Some of these things …. She’d never get a good night’s sleep again.” 

Holden nods, slowly. “What we do is so new. There’s not a lot of people who could understand. It’s specific … to you and me.”

Their gazes hold across the table. Holden’s eyes are soft and open, silently offering the intimacy he’s talking about. Bill wants to tell him it isn’t about that.  _ Don’t be so sentimental. Don’t make me think I love you.  _ But the words are lodged in the back of his throat. 

“You’ll find a way to make it work.” He says, taking a drag of his cigarette and exhaling a steady stream of smoke. “Long term relationships are all about compromise.”

“So, you’re saying you and Nancy have it all figured out?” Holden asks, his brow rising skeptically. “She’s fine with you hiding things from her?”

“It’s not a problem you can solve once and be done. You have to work at it. You have to wake up every morning and remember why you do what you do - what’s important.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

Bill scoffs and shakes his head at Holden’s perturbed expression. 

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the slave to my own life.” Holden says, his chin lifting defiantly. “I don’t want to feel guilty for everything I’ve done and wanted as soon as I open my eyes in the morning.”

Bill sucks on his cigarette until his lungs ache. Once upon a time, he’d had the same outlook. Once, when he was young and full of fire and dreams. 

“What you’re describing doesn’t exist.” He says, “There’s no such thing as ‘no regrets’.” 

Holden’s eyes go still on him, calm and cool like deep, motionless water. “Right. So why half-ass it?” 

***

After they both finish their beers, Bill asks Holden if he wants another. 

“No, I’m good.” He says, checking his watch. “We can check into the hotel room right about now.”

Bill nods, his gaze skirting past Holden’s. Rising to his feet, he drops some cash onto the table. 

Holden follows him out of the bar and onto the sidewalk where the afternoon sky has turned flat gray with the threat of heavier snowfall. The breeze has gotten colder since this morning, cutting quickly past his coat to chill his belly. It’s almost enough to kill the hot, writhing thing inside of him that’s anticipating what will happen once they get back to the room. Almost. 

He checks them into the room at the front desk while Bill hangs back, smoking the last of his cigarette. His mood matches the incoming inclement weather just beyond the hotel, but there’s a heat just underneath that perfectly aligns with Holden’s own fledgling needs. His intensity and sharp edges might have frightened away someone else, but Holden is exhilarated by the risk. He wants to see how close he can get to the fire without being burned. 

Once Holden secures the key, they silently walk down the corridors to their room. The hall is empty, no witnesses to this prelude of deviancy. Holden unlocks the door with a tremble in his hands, and leads them inside. 

Bill shrugs out of his coat and tosses it on the bed. As he crushes the remnants of his cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand, Holden studies the back of his head, the tense set of his shoulders. In the stifled, yawning silence, he hears the rasp of Bill’s lungs drawing in a steadying breath. 

He turns slowly, hands curling at his sides. Indecision flickers in the murky blue of his eyes for a moment before hardening, resisting, flaring. 

“Come here.” He says, quietly.

Holden’s insides melt like molten lava sinking into his knees. He feels weak and tremulous when he forces himself to move. 

Bill stands utterly still until Holden reaches him and there’s no more than a few inches of space separating them. His gaze is gripping, crushing Holden’s previous confidence down into ash. 

Holden lowers his head, staring at the carpet as his mind swims with conflicting impulses. He knows what he should do - just walk away - but his feet are bolted to the carpet, kept still by the electric waves of desire rolling off Bill’s presence. 

Bill reaches up to pinch his chin between his thumb and forefinger, and lifts Holden’s gaze back to him. 

Holden swallows hard. His chest his thundering, the sound of his desire overtaking him. Casting aside his hesitation, he lunges forward to kiss Bill sloppily on the mouth. 

Bill grunts quietly at the hasty collision of their mouths. His fingers slip from Holden’s chin to clutch him by the cheek, but his mouth resists, leaving Holden clinging to his lower lip for a few raw moments before breaking them apart. 

Both of Bill’s hands cradle his cheeks, holding him at a scarce distance that allows their noses to brush as Holden pushes closer. 

“I thought we had an understanding.” Bill whispers, his voice low and choked. 

Holden blinks, confused. 

“I told you why we can’t do this.” Bill presses. 

“I-I don’t understand. I thought you wanted me. I thought that’s why we got this room.” Holden says, a humiliated flush rushing to his cheeks. 

Bill’s eyelids lower, and his mouth purses into a thin line. His grip on Holden’s cheeks doesn’t retreat, but instead tightens until Holden can feel the pulse in his temples.

“Tell me I’m wrong.” He says, hesitantly slipping his hand beneath the lapel of Bill’s jacket to feel the thud of his heartbeat contained in his staggering chest. 

“Fuck, Holden.” Bill whispers, giving him a slight shake. “I’m trying to do what I should. I’m trying-”

“Aren’t you sick of trying?” 

“Yes, damnit.” Bill says, releasing Holden abruptly and taking a step back. “I’ve spent my whole life fucking trying, all right? And I was doing fine until you came along.”

“Me? You started it.” Holden says, his mouth drifting open in disbelief. 

“Please. You’re just as guilty as me. Don’t try to convince yourself otherwise. This room was your idea.”

Holden takes a step back, and lifts his chin. Bill looks angry until he takes off his jacket, and loosens the tie from around his neck. 

“What are you doing?”

“We can fight about this later, but I’m not really interested in debating who's responsible for what right now.” Holden says, lifting his right foot from the ground to tug off his shoe. 

Bill’s mouth moves wordlessly as the loafer hits the carpet with a thud, and Holden lifts his left foot. 

Discarding the other shoe, Holden straightens and begins to unbutton his shirt. 

“I know you’ve already made up your mind.” He says, peeling the shirt back from his shoulders. “It was made up when we left the courthouse.”

Bill’s jaw clenches. Unhappy with the fact that Holden had read him so easily, but he gives himself over to the suggestion without further complaint. Just as the shirt sails to the ground, he closes the space between them in a stride, and grabs Holden by the nape to pull him into a fierce kiss. 

Holden moans instantly into the harsh, hot press of Bill’s mouth. The need that had been simmering in the back of his mind all morning explodes to the forefront, a shower of white-hot tingles radiating from his belly and into his extremities. He leans into Bill’s chest as the kiss deepens past his pliant lips, between his teeth, against the soft recesses of his palate. It’s hungry, desperate, and biting - as if it’s the last kiss of Bill’s life, his last opportunity to touch Holden like this. 

Grasping Holden’s hip, he guides them back to the bed until Holden feels the mattress against his thighs. He falls back against it, parting his legs to the hard, warm push of Bill’s body crawling over top him and pinning him down against the sheets. 

Holden reaches up to wrap his arms around Bill’s neck, but Bill catches him by the wrists. As their mouths break apart, he guides Holden’s arms above his head, pressing them gently into the mattress. 

He stays close, his nose brushing against Holden’s as their panting, exhilarated breaths meet in between. Reaching down between them, he locates Holden’s belt buckle, and quickly opens the fastenings of his trousers. 

Holden bites back a whimper as the fabric releases, allowing his swelling cock to throb eagerly against the thin, remaining barrier of his briefs. He carefully lifts his knees in encouragement, and Bill strips the trousers from his legs. 

Bill rocks back on his heels, gazing down at Holden laid out on the sheets below him with a determined, hungry look in his eyes. Silently, he loosens his tie and unbuttons his shirt. The garments come away slowly, one at a time, until he’s down to his undershirt and boxers, and his desire is obscenely blatant against the tented fabric. 

Holden draws in a hitched breath as need bolts through him like a punch in the gut. He wants to do something to accelerate this moment, but he’s afraid any fast movements might disrupt the balance of Bill’s compliance. He lays completely still until Bill leans down again to kiss him, his mouth softer this time but no less persistent. 

Their skin is closer now, thin cotton allowing heat and throbbing needs to communicate in muted patterns of vagrant touches, nudging hips, aching cocks grinding against one another. Holden whimpers at the heavy weight of Bill’s hips coming down, pushing into the engorged, pulsing cradle of his own groin. Reaching his hand from above his head, he tentatively loops his grasp around Bill’s nape. Bill doesn’t resist so he lets fingertips wander down the curve of his neck, against the top of his spine, just underneath the neckline of his undershirt to gauge the shudders rippling through him.

Bill draws back, damp lips panting heavily against Holden’s cheeks. His eyes slip open, pinched and scarred with battling desires. 

“Fuck-” He murmurs, the sound of his voice unusually weak and whimpered. “Christ, I want to fuck you.”

Holden’s belly loses gravity for a moment before the weight of those words land hard in the pit of his stomach. His mouth drifts open, an irreverent groan sliding up past his knotted throat. He’s nodding before he even has the sense to consider what Bill’s suggestion means. 

He’s been with men before. Not like this. It had always been quick hook-ups, traded blowjobs or handjobs, no sense of intimacy. Not inside of him. Not joined or shared. 

Bill reads the hesitation in Holden’s eyes and withdraws further. 

“Fuck. Sorry.” He says, squeezing his eyes shut. “We don’t have to-”

“No.” Holden says, quickly. “No, I want that, too.”

Bill strokes a thumb over Holden’s cheek, his brow pinching worriedly. “It’s a really bad fucking idea.”

Holden gives a choked laugh. “Yeah, I know.”

“I don’t have anything to- … to you know, make it easier. It isn’t safe.”

“It’s okay.”

“You’re saying that right now. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know you won’t.”

Bill sighs, and presses a kiss to Holden’s mouth. It lingers there for an aching moment before moving along the corner of his lips, against his cheek and jaw. His breath rustles hotly against Holden’s ear as he pauses, uttering a quiet groan. 

“God, you make this too easy.”

Holden clutches harder at Bill’s neck, and hums an eager sound. 

Lifting his head from Holden’s neck, Bill reaches down to tug at his underwear. Holden arches his hips, allowing the briefs to slide out from underneath him, along his thighs, and down his calves. As they drift from his ankles, he bites his lower lip to quell a groan. 

Bill nudges his knees open, and cool air breathes against his swollen cock where need claws incessantly at his insides. He casts Bill a desperate gaze, reading the hunger on the hard lines and planes of his face, the aroused glint in his eyes. He tries to work up something to say because the silence is suffocating, but Bill clutches him by the thigh to turn him over. 

Holden obediently rolls onto his belly, his heart stammering with panicked anticipation. When Bill grasps his hip and urges him up onto his knees, he follows the gentle yet firm guidance until his knees are tucked under him, his back pinned into a vulnerable arch while his cheek is pressed to the sheets.

Peering frantically over his shoulder, he glimpses Bill’s hands smoothing his t-shirt up his back. The graze of fingertips washes tingles down his spine, and he hurriedly untangles his hands from the sheets to pull the shirt off over his head. Waves of heat roll down his body as he’s left completely naked, crouched in front of Bill, offering himself entirely. The gravity of what he’s about to do isn’t striking yet because Bill’s hands are stroking his backside and his mouth is planting a row of deepening kisses down the bottom of his spine and into the vulnerable crevice. 

“Ohh …” Holden whimpers, his hands curling instinctively around the sheets. 

Warm breath spills down against his asshole, drawing every muscle taut. A cry bubbles up in the back of his throat, and his back arches. He’s already hard and desperate, everything inside him longing for completion, but more than anything, longing for the moment when their bodies are joined at the deepest point, the most intimate he’s ever allowed himself to be with another man. He’s thought about it enough that he should have been prepared, but nothing could brace him for how it feels when Bill’s mouth kisses him there with tender determination. 

“Oh, Jesus …” Holden moans, his eyes slamming shut against a thrill of pleasure. 

The sensation sinks down through his body, a thousand tiny needles washing across quaking skin. He leans back into it, mouth dropping open as Bill’s tongue laps against him. 

Bill grunts a pleased reply, and braces a hand against Holden’s lower back to keep him in place. His tongue asserts itself wetly and firmly against the sensitive opening, starting slow, shallow and swirling, but building until it finds a rhythmic, grinding pace that creeps past Holden’s unclenching rim. 

“Oh my God …” Holden whispers, shooting a delirious glance over his shoulder. 

His whole body goes weak as he watches Bill’s mouth move against him, tongue buried in the cleft, quickly working him open. His cock is so hard that it hurts, but he can’t think about anything other than the pressure gradually mounting, breaching him. 

Clutching Holden’s ass cheek, Bill pins him in a stretched open, arched position as he delves his tongue inside.

Holden chokes out an indistinct moan as his body submits and he feels Bill’s tongue worm its way into him. The penetration is messy and superficial, but he can feel it flicking down against sensitive places that have never been touched, let alone licked, before. 

As Bill’s tongue ruts into him, Holden thrusts his hips back into the pressure. Their paired desperation rapidly devolves into a sloppy, feverish pace. Bill’s tongue fucks into him, pauses to suckle at the limp pucker, goes back to fucking him again, and in between, Holden manages dazed whimpers and shuddering nudges of his hips. It repeats again and again until Holden is desperately thrusting against Bill’s face, clutching at the sheets, half-sobbing in greatly aroused bewilderment. 

“Bill, oh god …” He groans, his voice a raspy, breathless wreck as Bill pauses to dampen his fingers. 

Holden casts a hazy glance backwards just before Bill’s finger presses against him. His body instinctively threatens to wrench away, but Bill’s hand on his hip drags him into the firm pressure. His index finger invades Holden’s slick, quaking body, offering a few lazy thrusts down to the knuckle before withdrawing to pair it with another finger. 

“Fuck … fuck-” Holden groans, his body seizing as Bill’s fingers thrust into him. 

“Relax.” Bill murmurs, steadily pumping his hand against Holden’s trembling backside. 

Holden gasps in a hiccuped breath, almost chokes, and exhales a helpless moan. Bill’s fingers are persistently penetrating him, working deep, searching, grinding, and he can’t think. He’s sweating feverishly against the bunched sheets, already worked over, and the thought of Bill’s big, hard cock going into him makes the panicked need scream hotter through his veins. 

He groans a choked plea, and Bill pauses to stroke his hip. 

“Are you okay?”

Holden nods against the sheets, and casts Bill a hesitant gaze. “I think I’m ready.”

Bill's fingers stay lodged inside him as he catches Holden by the elbow to pull him up from the sheets. 

“All right. Come up here.” He murmurs, shifting closer as Holden straightens. 

Holden leans back against him through a wave of dizziness. His equilibrium feels like it’s floating on the open sea, his body drifting and humming through currents of overwhelmed arousal and need. He moans softly as Bill presses a humid kiss to the back of his neck. 

“You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this.” Bill whispers, sliding his fingers free so that he can take off his boxers. 

Holden peeks over his shoulder, and his breath catches when he glimpses Bill’s hard, swollen cock bobbing against his belly. 

“So have I.” He murmurs, pressing his eyes shut against a sudden clutch of nerves. “All the time … every day.”

Bill spits into his palm, and lathers the saliva over his cock. He does it three times until his cock is glistening and slick, and he smooths the excess along Holden’s damp cleft. He’s breathing tremulously as he shifts closer so that his thighs are framing Holden’s, and his cockhead rubs up against the opening. Slick skin slides back and forth for a few breathless seconds before the tip finds its way against the lingering resistance in Holden’s body, past the taut ring of muscle. 

Holden gasps at the piercing sensation, and nearly bolts upright. Bill’s arm wraps around his chest, gently but firmly pulling him back down. 

“Relax.” Bill says against the shell of his ear, “Jesus Fucking Christ, you’re so tight.”

Holden shudders against him, but doesn’t move otherwise, too overwhelmed to try leaning away or pressing closer. The tip of Bill’s cock is lodged inside him, the greatest pressure he’s ever felt, a sensation so intense that he feels faint for half a second. He’d gone over the idea in his head enough times, but no amount of fantasizing could have prepared him; he’s reeling, lost inside a feeling that feels larger than the scope of his own body.

They both breathe raggedly into the silence for several long moments until Holden begins to adjust to the thick weight of Bill’s cock just inside him. 

Bill kisses at the soft skin behind his ear, and rubs a soothing hand down down his ribs and against his quaking belly. 

“Do you want me to stop?” He asks. 

Holden shakes his head, vehemently. Clutching at Bill’s forearm banded across his chest, he hesitantly rocks his hips back against the mounting pressure. 

“Mm.” Bill grunts, “That’s good. Just like that. Easy …”

Holden presses his eyes shut as Bill’s voice sinks past the terrified resistance in his body, melting his nerves, making his brain go hazy with lust. He isn’t moving, just letting Holden set the pace and the depth, but the warm embrace of his chest at Holden’s back, his arm around him is the most security Holden has ever felt in bed with someone else. His hesitation drifts away, old fears and self-disgust fading into the background. This feels good and right, not at all the horrible deviance he’d been led to believe. 

He keeps carefully thrusting back against Bill’s cock until he feels his body give way and their bodies fuse together at the deepest point. 

“Oh, fuck-” Bill groans against his neck, “God, you feel good.”

Holden pauses against him, humming a fragile moan past his clenched jaw. His body trembles with overstimulation, the weight of Bill’s cock resting inside him and against his throbbing prostate. The ache that had begun the moment he closed the hotel door behind them blooms into a pounding force, a need that won’t stop until it finds release, a longing more fierce than any experience he’s ever had with anyone else. 

Clutching Holden’s hip, Bill thrusts softly against him. The penetration is slow and languid, but it hits deep, down into nerves that Holden hadn’t known existed until this point; his whole body leaps, a livewire, an open flame.

“Fuck …” He whimpers, arching desperately as Bill’s cock fucks slowly, deliberately into him. “Bill, my god-”

Bill groans a reply, but his pace is unerring. 

The friction builds and builds, sweeping tingles down every inch of Holden’s body. His groin clamps down, and his cock aches. He can feel it bobbing from between his thighs, glimpsing release cresting on the horizon; and he can hardly breathe, let alone think as a single dazed idea rises above the rest - he’s going to come just from Bill’s cock thrusting into him, and he didn’t think that was possible, didn’t think it would feel this good and divine and incredible. But here he is. His cock is weeping. 

“Oh, fuck. Hold on.” Holden gasps, clutching at Bill’s thigh. 

“What?” Bill asks, coming to a dead halt. “Is it hurting?”

“No. I just- … I thought I was going to come.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Bill asks, a quiet laugh blustering against Holden’s sweat-lined nape.

“I didn’t want it to be over so soon.”

“Me either.” Bill murmurs, giving him a squeeze. “Come here.”

Holden groans quietly as Bill’s cock slides out of him, leaving behind an aching void. He quickly follows Bill across the bed to where he’s laying down on his side with his elbow propped under him. He pats the sheets in front of him, and Holden lays down. 

Bill applies more saliva to his cock and Holden’s opening before canting his hips forward again. His palm grazes Holden’s backside before sweeping along the underside of his thigh to pull him closer. As their bodies meet again, his palm clutches at the back of Holden's knee, pinning it up against his chest, and using the grip as leverage to drag Holden back against him. 

“Ohh …” Holden moans loudly as Bill’s cock thrusts into him again from this new angle, and he’s pinned open and helpless to the steady pace with Bill’s hand locked around his leg. 

“How’s that?” Bill murmurs, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. 

“Oh God …” Holden chokes out as Bill’s pace picks up. “Yes …”

Bill’s other arm slips under his neck and across his chest. His palm cradles Holden’s pec, thumb grazing at his nipple, while he pulls him close. His breath plasters hot against Holden’s ear and neck, pressing the vibration of his groans into perspiration slick skin and down into the echo of his skull.

Holden tilts his head back to expose his neck, enjoying the thrill of tingles that sweep through him at the scrape of Bill’s stubble and the nip of his teeth. 

“Fuck.” Bill curses, his voice trembling as their bodies slap loudly, persistently against one another. “Wanna fuck you so hard.”

Holden moans and nods. The dull roar of need in his brain has reached a fever pitch, and he can’t think past the misty haze settling over every limb and fiber. The friction is getting sore, but he’s so close to coming that the collateral of his body barely matters. He just wants to chase this feeling down until it's entirely his own, until it swallows him whole; already nothing could compare to how it feels, but he wants that moment of triumph when his body is entirely conquered and lying helplessly beneath the gushing shower of Bill’s release. 

“Yes, yes-” He pants, thrusting back against Bill’s cock with what little leverage he has. “Fuck me. Harder.”

Bill growls against his neck, and turns him down against the sheets. In just a few seconds, Holden has a mouthful of sheets and his body is screaming beneath the raw, powerful crash of Bill’s cock driving into him. The burning ache melds into the throbbing one at the center of his body, and he shoves a hand underneath him to grab at his twitching cock. He lifts his head from the sheets to cry out in pleasure as the desperate, jagged clutch of his palm tips him over the edge. He comes into the sheets, his body jolting powerlessly beneath Bill’s hands pinning him down. The hot gush of his own cum dampening the covers makes him groan even louder, pleased by the dirty, unforgettable sensation. 

Holden is still dazed and drifting beyond the fringes of reality when Bill’s groans hasten into guttural, breathless panting right before they cut off into a choked cry. He pulls out abruptly, leaving Holden aching and quivering, and releases a load of hot, drizzling release across his backside and lower back. 

Holden gasps and peeks over his shoulder to glimpse Bill hunched over him, his fist wrapped around his gushing cock, his face twisted with a grimace of pleasure. He jerks at his cock until the jetting release eases and he’s dripping the last droplets of cum into the already cooling puddles rolling down the curve of Holden’s spine. 

The room grows silent except for their raspy breathing. Holden turns his face into the sheets, and squeezes his eyes shut as the haze of lust melts away and leaves him with the fragmented aftermath. He doesn’t move when the bed creaks behind him, and Bill gets up from the disheveled sheets and walks to the bathroom. 

The faucet in the bathroom runs for a few minutes until Bill’s footsteps approach the bed again. When he climbs onto the mattress with a damp washcloth in his hand, Holden lifts his head from the sheets. He tries to read Bill’s expression, but it’s coolly reserved even as he cleans his dribbling cum from Holden’s skin. 

When he’s done, he leans back on his heels, and nods for Holden to get up. 

“Go to the bathroom.” He orders, quietly. 

Holden obediently pushes himself up from the sheets. He’s trembling down into his bones, but he tries not to show it as he climbs off the bed. Staggering to the bathroom, he pushes the door shut behind him and leans there for half a second before he’s forced to sit down on the toilet. 

He doesn’t come back out of the bathroom for half an hour. He takes a shower to scrub away any lingering, dried release, focusing vaguely on bathing while his mind repeats the fresh memories again and again. When he gets out of the shower, he gazes at his reflection in the foggy glaze of the mirror and wonders:  _ Is this going to hurt tomorrow?  _

***

Bill does his best to clean up the dampness in the sheets with a handful of kleenex. When Holden emerges from the bathroom with rosy skin and wet hair, he’s laying on the other side of the bed smoking a cigarette. 

Holden pauses just outside the bathroom door, his eyes wide and gleaming with hesitation. 

Bill’s chest constricts. God, how he wants to hate Holden for doing this to him, but he’s too beautiful and soft. The crippling blow of regret has yet to descend, and all he wants to do now is hold onto these moments until they’re gone. 

Dragging his cigarette from his mouth, he extends his hand to wave Holden closer. 

Relief softens Holden’s taut mouth and jaw. Shuffling across the room, he drops the damp towel from his waist, and crawls onto the bed beside Bill. 

His skin is silky soft and warm from the bath when Bill slips an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. He presses his cheek to Bill’s chest and exhales a contented sigh, the kind that makes Bill want to promise him things he can’t possibly give. 

They lay in the silence for a long time, arms wrapped around each other, until Bill’s cigarette dwindles and Holden’s body goes completely lax against him. 

His raspy whisper interrupts the melted crawl of Bill’s thoughts, “I’ve never had that with anyone else.”

Bill clenches his jaw. He feels a twinge of regret because he’s taken some of Holden’s innocence, or at the very least, his belief in his heterosexuality. He could marry Debbie and have a family if only Bill would leave him alone. He has that kind of tenacity to stick to his marriage vows, but Bill ruined that opportunity. All of their lies are on the ground. 

“I didn’t even think it could be that way.” Holden continues, his breath whispering against Bill’s chest. “So … good. I always thought- … well, I was always led to believe it would be terrible, painful.”

“It is good. That’s the problem.”

Holden tilts his head back so that he can gaze up at Bill’s stoic stare fixed on the wall in front of them. He sighs quietly. 

“I know you’re going to want to be realistic about this. Tomorrow, you’ll have to go back to lying to yourself and trying to be good.”

Bill takes a drag of his cigarette and doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have anything to add. Holden has always seen straight through him. 

“And that’s okay. I understand.” Holden murmurs, “This isn’t … we can’t - I don’t know -  _ date  _ or anything.”

Bill scoffs. “No shit, Holden. We’re men. We can’t date each other.”

Holden’s brow furrows with a soft frown. He looks ready to argue, but instead, he nuzzles his cheek tighter against Bill’s chest and stretches his fingers over Bill’s ribs to pull them closer. 

“What about this?” Holden asks. 

“This?” 

“The, you know- … sex.” 

Bill shakes his head. “We shouldn’t do that either.”

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

Holden huffs a disappointed sigh. “I know. You’re married.” 

“Yes.”

“Married to a woman you were probably cheating on long before you met me.” 

“I told you I didn’t do it all the time.” Bill says, sharply, “It was just- one night. Okay? One fucking night where everything was just too much. We were finalizing Brian’s adoption, I was trying to get Road School off the ground, and it was just- …”

“An escape.” Holden murmurs, lowering his head. “And what about now?”

Bill rubs a hand over his forehead. The stress in his veins feels close to caving, that regret he’d been anticipating rising up more strongly than ever. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to explain this mistake away, how he’s going to justify it to himself the way he’s justified every other infraction over the years. 

“I don’t know, Holden. I didn’t drive out here planning to do this.” 

Holden pushes up onto his elbow so that he can turn his face fully towards Bill’s. In the yellow lamplight, his eyes gleam like wedding rings. 

“I’m interrogating you. I’m sorry.” He murmurs, smoothing his thumb against the thin skin over Bill’s sternum. He drops a kiss right after it, making his way up to the ridge of Bill’s clavicle and the little, warm hollow at the base of his throat. 

Bill closes his eyes, and tries to block out the fluttering in his chest at the warm, alluring press of Holden’s lips branding his skin, tenderly marking him. He lets it go on until Holden is nuzzling at his throat and jaw, a soft, damp trajectory headed for his mouth. Discarding his cigarette in the ashtray, he clutches Holden’s shoulders to carefully break them apart. 

Holden frowns. His intuitive gaze sharpens past the lustful haze of desire. 

“What?” He whispers. 

Bill brushes his knuckles across the rosy blush on Holden’s cheek before withdrawing his hand and curling it into a fist. 

“You want to do this?” He asks, mustering a stern tone. “We have to keep it separate. Separate from everything.” 

Holden’s lips part in growing surprise. 

“Don’t be fucking sentimental about it.” Bill adds, giving him a nudge. “It isn’t going to last forever so don’t get invested. The moment you go soft, you’re fucked. ”

Holden leans back, and Bill can feel the ghost impression of his skin, his body heat, his weight on his ribs right before he crushes his own sentimentality. 

“Well, that’s a bleak outlook.” Holden says, rolling back against the pillows to gaze at the ceiling. 

“But smart. My father taught me that a long time ago. Words to live by, trust me.”

Holden’s gaze rests heavily on him, but Bill keeps his eyes fixed on the wall. He reaches over to grab his cigarettes and pulls out a fresh smoke. His throat knots as he lights up, instant regret clutching at his chest. 

“He must not have been a very kind person.” Holden whispers. 

“Yeah, well-” Bill scoffs, taking a drag of his cigarette, “I wouldn’t have survived the Army - or a lot of other shit - if it wasn’t for him.”

Holden shifts onto his side and tucks his arm underneath his head so that he can study Bill’s profile. Bill glances down at him, catching a hint of curiosity and compassion gleaming in his eyes. 

“What do you think he would think if he knew about this?” Holden asks. 

Bill scowls. “What kind of a question is that?”

“Just curious.”

“For one, he’s gone now so it doesn’t matter.” Bill says, reaching over to tap ashes into the tray. “For another, I think you already have a pretty good idea.”

“My father would disown me.” Holden says, quietly, “But he wouldn’t kill me.” 

“Lucky you.”

Holden touches him softly on the arm, and it takes all of Bill’s willpower not to wrench away. It’s easy enough to touch Holden and to let Holden touch him when he’s drunk with need and stupid with lust; it’s this cooling period afterword that’s the hardest, the tender range of honest emotion that sexual intercourse invites. He’d rather not have stayed here to watch Holden unfold and melt in the afterglow, happy for a few short hours in the lingering haze of orgasm and shared touches, but there’s nowhere else for him to go.

Pushing up onto his elbow, Holden clears his throat, “I can be strong. And hard.”

Bill casts him a dubious glance. 

“I can put aside sentimentality.” Holden’s face is calm with sober determination. He leans forward to run a coy finger down Bill’s chest, whispering low in his throat, “I can be whatever you want me to be, do whatever you want me to do-”

Bill draws in a sharp breath, and pulls away. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he braces his elbows against his knees and rubs a hand over his face to smother the sudden urge to kiss Holden again - to kiss him silent and senseless and submissive.

“What?” Holden asks. 

“Nothing.” Bill says, climbing to his feet. “Right now I want to get a shower, and I want both of us to get to bed early. We have a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.”

Holden nods, but his gaze is still clinging intently to the trembling nuances of Bill’s face. 

Bill stamps out the last of his cigarette, and saunters to the bathroom without looking back. The mirror is still fogged from Holden’s lengthy shower, and his reflection is fuzzy and bleak. He ignores any glimpse of himself in the glass as he turns on the shower, lets the water heat up, and climbs inside. 

When he comes back out a little while later, Holden has ordered room service. The rest of the night is spent quietly watching the television, talking vaguely of work and the Clint Eastwood flick playing out on the screen. 

Eventually, Bill calls Nancy to let her know they’ll be spending the night; he touts some believable lie that they got tied up at the courthouse.  _ Slapping on the handcuffs is easy. Prosecuting is the long, complicated part of it.  _ He can’t tell whether she believes him or not. 

As the sun goes down, they turn off their bedside lamps and lay down next to each other in stifled silence. Finally, Holden rolls over onto his side, putting his back to Bill. In the milky glow of moonlight, the scattering of birthmarks across his back connect like constellations in Bill’s mind. He curls his hand into a fist around the corner of his pillow, and stops himself from reaching out towards their warmth and light. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my personal favorite chapters of this fic. Let me know your thoughts! ❤ And for you keen observers, yes, the chapter count moved up to 9. I finished writing the last chapter this week, and it turns out there really is no way for me to not be long-winded lol Can't wait to share the rest!


	4. red phosphorus

**July, 1979**

**Adairsville, Georgia**

It takes Holden weeks to recover from that night in Altoona. Physically, he’s sore for a few days, and the hickey on his neck fades after a week; but for some time after, he keeps opening his eyes in the car while they’re driving or in the office when he’s staring across the room at Bill, and he feels like he’s lost his footing on a flight of stairs in the dark. One moment, he knows where he’s at; the next, there’s nothing under his feet, and he’s tripping, falling, crashing down - down into Bill. 

He’d gotten used to living with his desires, the constant self-evaluation, the negotiations. He’d memorized Bill’s speech about there being no good answer to them having an affair. He’d burned it into his brain. Then he went and burnt everything else down. He swallowed Bill’s desires whole and now they’re living down there in his belly with his own irrepressible impulses. 

He’s terrified of the consequences. If someone found out, their lives would be over; but he can’t stop himself. The way Bill touches him when they’re alone is like nothing he’s ever felt - the reckless desire, the hot passion bursting free like flares, red phosphorus staining an otherwise black sky and blinding him. 

He feels wild and new. Hidden fractions of light inside him stretch free when Bill is making love to him - and no, he can’t only think the word  _ sex  _ because it doesn’t feel like biological mechanics or an empty, unfeeling exchange of flesh. No matter how insistent Bill is upon limiting their private relationship to fulfilling a need, Holden always thinks of it that way -  _ making love.  _

He’s alive in a way he hasn’t ever been before, and perhaps that’s made him stupid. 

In late June, they interview Richard Speck.  _ Eight ripe cunts.  _ He feels powerful when he says it, vindicated when the maneuver blows the conversation wide open.

Later, in the hotel room, Bill pins him down, and in the most filthy voice Holden has ever heard, whispers that he’s going to fuck Holden’s ripe cunt until he’s crippled and crying. He takes it back on the plane, of course - much later, after he’s had the time to compartmentalize again and tuck all of those ugly, horrendous needs back into their muzzled boxes. Holden wants to ask who’s being “holier-than-thou” now, but he’s not ready to disrupt the careful balance between his professional and private relationships with Bill.

Two weeks after Speck, the Adairsville PD faxes over the details on the unfortunate rape and murder of Lisa Dawn Porter. He and Bill fly down to assess and work up a profile that Holden is extremely confident in, and the connection to the older rape charge on a tree trimmer name Darrell Jean Devier seems to seal the deal. 

That evening in the hotel room, the air conditioning unit crouched below the window rattles laboriously against the humid, Southern heat while Holden braces his hands on the headboard, and rides Bill’s cock hard until they both come. 

He sinks down against the sheets, breathing hard. 

Bill rolls over to wrap a lazy arm around his sweaty midriff, and plasters hot kisses along his shoulder and nape. 

“Fuck, that was …. What got into you?” He murmurs, still sounding delirious and pliant with pleasure. 

Holden twists onto his side so that he can gaze directly into Bill’s face. 

“Today was a good day.” He murmurs, “It looks like that Devier guy fits the profile. We did our job - really well.”

“Locking up perverts gets you horny, hmm?” Bill mutters, nuzzling a sloppy kiss into his throat. 

“Mm. The sweet smell of some asshole getting exactly what he deserves.”

Bill props himself up on his elbow, and traces Holden’s flushed cheek with his thumb. His eyes are growing serious the way they always do, the heavy cloud cover rolling in across sunny skies. It’s hard to describe the way his eyes shift from blue to gray, and his hardened exterior rises back up around the soft underbelly. 

“It was a good day.” He says, “But we’ve got an early flight tomorrow. We should try to get some shut-eye.”

As he rolls away and climbs to his feet, Holden flops back against the pillows with a deep sigh. Bill always cuts the afterglow and pillow talk short. 

“Bill.” He whispers. 

Bill stops at the doorway of the bathroom, and turns around to look at him. 

Holden pushes up onto his elbow. “If it was Devier and he goes down for the murder, it’s going to look really good for our study.”

“Yeah.” 

“Maybe this time next year we won’t be in the basement.”

“Maybe.” 

He looks confused by Holden’s line of thinking until Holden swings his legs over the edge of the bed, and says, “I know you said this isn’t going to last forever, but I also hope that this time next year, you’re making love to me exactly the way you did just now.”

Bill’s gaze skirts Holden’s. The ripple of tension in his jawline is visible even from across the distance of the carpet. 

“Making love …” He echoes, his voice a scraped, humorless laugh. 

Holden’s chest flinches. He isn’t sure if he’d meant to say that out loud or not, but now that he’s done it, he knows he wants Bill to hear it. Hear at it least once. 

“Is that what it feels like to you?” Bill asks, his gaze shifting back to Holden. The corners of his eyes are pinched with disgust. “Getting sodomized - feels like making love to you?”

Holden’s blood cools, and his stomach turns. “Don’t use that word.”

“Why not? It is what it is. And it’s illegal, by the way.” Bill says, raising a defensive hand. 

Holden purses his lips. There’s a wound in Bill’s eyes that he doesn’t know how to address or heal. He wants to hold him and tell him it’s okay to want this, to feel this. He wants to think that the world is changing, that the shame Bill clings to is a relic of history. But maybe that’s just wildly, disproportionately positive thinking. 

“Just don’t complicate it.” Bill says, finally, his voice softer this time.

Holden gives a slight nod, and Bill disappears into the bathroom. 

Laying back against the sheets, Holden rubs both hands over his face. He’s a fool - a damn fool - but he’s still thinking about the future. A world in which they see daylight from inside their office, they aren’t the last-ditch-effort call by a floundering police department, he isn’t trapped in this endless cycle of need and guilt, and Bill doesn’t hate both of them for wanting each other. He doesn’t plan on giving up until Bill comes around. 

***

**August, 1979**

**Fredericksburg, Virginia**

None of Holden’s hopes arrive in the way he’d foolishly predicted. 

The moment they return from Adairsville, the OPR is waiting for them, and after what Holden assumed was a successful meeting, they return to the basement to find Shepard and Wendy with the Speck tape winding through the cassette player. 

_ Eight ripe cunts. _

_ I’m going to fuck your ripe cunt.  _

Holden feels sick to his stomach right before his righteous anger emerges. He’s done enough mentally comparing himself to sick, perverted men - killers who have no regard for their victims and the lives they’ve destroyed. He isn’t anything like them no matter what some people in the world might think, and the fact that Shepard is treading a little close to that insinuation over a vulgar phrase makes his blood boil. He’s achieved things that no one in the FBI would have thought possible until he started interviewing men like Speck. To reduce their work down to nothing more than tawdry conversation and salacious, minor details is a crime within itself. 

They agree to keep the tape a secret, but when he and Bill go back down to Georgia to interview Devier themselves, there’s a fire within him that has the red, burnt taste of impetuous hubris. He doesn’t feel the slightest twinge of guilt when he turns off the tape recorder and uses Devier’s own pedophiliac mentality against him. 

They go out drinking that night with Detective Chambers and Sergeant Brassel to celebrate Devier’s confession. The bourbon isn’t especially good, but Holden hardly cares about the quality of the booze; he’s enjoying the buzz of alcohol and weightless euphoria. 

As the night grows later, Brassel keeps getting closer and closer to him. He’s just lucid enough to recognize the interest in the young officer’s eyes, the hesitation and yearning he’d often felt when he was still questioning whether or not he was attracted to men. He raises his voice above the clamor of the bar to remark to Bill about how late it’s getting and how early their flight is tomorrow before Brassel can humiliate himself. 

As he and Bill exit the bar, a cool, summer breeze drifts across the half-deserted parking lot. The moon, pinned far above in a cloudless, black sky, illuminates the bemused expression on Bill’s face as Holden loops an arm around his elbow and walks carefully toward their car. 

“Are you really that wasted?” He asks. 

Holden leans closer, perhaps more than is needed, and nods his head. A sigh hums from the back of his throat as he rubs his flushed cheek against Bill’s shoulder.

“All right, you’re not  _ that  _ wasted.” Bill objects, pulling his shoulder away. 

“Yeah, not nearly as wasted as Brassel.” Holden murmurs, tilting his head back and opening his eyes to the distant, star-pricked sky. “He wanted to fuck me so bad.”

“Are you sure that isn’t just the alcohol talking?”

“No, I could see it in his eyes.”

Bill makes a disgruntled sound. His elbow tightens incrementally around Holden’s grasp, drawing him closer despite his protests. 

“Don’t worry - I have no interest in fucking him.” Holden says, chuckling softly. 

As they reach their car, Holden keeps his grip on Bill’s elbow, but turns to fully face him. The flicker of neon from the bar sign splashes pale pink across his pinched expression of repressed jealousy and irritation. 

“I want you.” Holden murmurs, finding himself leaning closer as his world tilts with an inebriated jolt. “Just you. I wish I could scream it at the sky right now.”

“Okay, dial it back.” Bill chides, sternly, one hand bracing against Holden’s waist to steady him. “You’re just drunk.”

“No …” Holden mumbles, shaking his head. “The things you do to me, Bill. You make me feel fucking stupid, and crazy, and happy, and incredible, and …”

Bill sighs, lowering his head. A frown slashes a deep crease between his brows. 

“Sometimes I feel like I could explode with it- … with you.” Holden whispers, running numb, trembling fingertips across Bill’s cheek. 

Bill catches him by the wrist, yanking his hand away. Taking a sudden step back,he leaves Holden clutching at the cold steel of the car hood to balance himself. 

“Stop it, all right.” He says, sharply. “Someone could see.”

“Then let them see!” Holden says, loudly, waving a wild hand at the parking lot. 

Several parking spaces over, two men walking into the bar cast them curious frowns. 

“Keep your voice down.” Bill objects, his gaze darting worriedly between Holden and the onlookers, “Jesus, Holden. This is the deep South. Do you want to be lynched?”

Holden gazes at him quietly, feeling his lower lip sliding into a pout. He’s on the edge of awareness of just how drunk he is, but he can’t stop these feelings from gushing out of him. It’s all the truth - a truth he’s been walking around with for what feels like ages now. 

“Get in the damn car.” Bill says, waving a dismissive hand toward the passenger’s side. 

“Fine.” Holden mutters. 

He walks slowly around the hood of the car, squinting hard when Bill starts the engine and flicks the lights on. He tumbles into the passenger’s seat, and drags the seatbelt over his lap with hands that feel like they’re moving through ocean waves. 

Bill rolls the window down so he can smoke while he drives, and the sound of the wind blustering into the car is the only thing keeping Holden grounded to this moment until they reach the hotel. 

“Come on,” Bill says, nudging him on the shoulder, “Let’s get your ass to bed.”

Holden crawls languidly from the seat leather to find Bill opening the door for him, and dragging him upright by the elbow. As they trudge down the sidewalk to their room, that hand slides down his spine to tuck itself low around his waist, and stays firmly in place while he unlocks the hotel door. 

Holden leans closer, inhaling the scent of Bill’s aftershave competing with the scent of ripe summer air. He feels impossibly happy, a moment that isn’t bound to last inside of reality but that is cocooned by a drunken haze. He wraps his fingers around Bill’s tie, and drags them into the room the moment the door slides open. 

In the shadows, Bill pushes Holden up against the door, and tosses the room key onto the dresser. 

Clutching at Bill’s cheek, Holden leans in to plant a messy kiss on his mouth. His tongue is thick and tingly with alcohol as he uses it to swipe along Bill’s lower lip and past his teeth, but he acutely feels the pinch of Bill nibbling and suckling, gently bruising his mouth as he pulls away. 

“Fuck, I want you.” Holden whispers, drowsily. 

“Mmm,” Bill murmurs, cradling Holden’s face between both his hands. “Do you always get this horny when you’re drunk?”

“Maybe … and a little sentimental, too.”

Bill’s brow flickers with a frown, and he begins to pull away.

“I want you to make love to me.” Holden says, hanging onto Bill’s tie and nudging his forehead against Bill’s. 

Bill’s breath quickens against his cheeks. A protest is forming in his throat, but Holden smothers it with another hasty kiss until he feels the resistance in Bill’s mouth soften. He kisses off Bill’s lower lip, and moves along his cheek and jawline until he reaches his ear. 

“Make love to me.” He repeats, his breath hot on Bill’s earlobe. “Look me in the eyes while you do it.”

Bill tucks his forehead down against Holden’s neck for a long moment. His hands are clutching at Holden’s waist, transmitting a tremble from his palms to Holden’s burning skin. He’s brick and mortar, crumbling; Holden has only to remove one important piece before the entire defense buckles, and he wonders if he’s found it at long last. 

Dragging Holden away from the door, Bill walks him back toward the bed with a kiss pressed hard to his mouth. Holden moans against the fervent pressure, already tearing at his clothes. When they reach the mattress, his drunk, unwieldy fingers have managed to pull his tie loose and unfasten a few buttons, but Bill pushes his eager hands above his head the moment he collapses to the sheets. 

Holden spreads out eagerly, a little too inebriated to consider reasserting any kind of control over this barrelling train that he’s let loose. Bill strips his clothing from his body, every touch determined and fierce. Holden slips his eyelids open to read his expression - the knotted brow, the wild gleam of panic in his eyes, the tense set of his jawline - and sees more than wanton desire; he sees a need - the base urge that we are born with as children for love and acceptance, and a fear that if he doesn’t move quickly enough, his chance to feel that warmth might disappear like water from between his fingers. 

As he pulls Holden’s underwear from his ankles, Bill’s eyelids lower over that glimpse into the truth; and then, Holden can’t think about analyzing his lover or manipulating him into something they both want any longer. His mind is lost to the buzz of booze and the ache of arousal, a scattering of tingles down his spine that’s so intense he’s almost seeing stars when Bill’s mouth gathers him up. 

He’s hard in just a few moments, his legs curling up and around Bill’s shoulders in quivering protest. Bill sucks him down greedily, the wet rhythm of Holden's cock sliding repeatedly to the back of his tongue echoing through the room above his helpless moans. Arousal builds quick and hot until he's trembling and on the verge of climax.

Clutching at Bill’s nape, he gasps out a desperate cry, “Oh, no, Bill - no, wait.”

Bill sucks off him, leaving his cock engorged, wet, and throbbing against his belly. When he peeks up Holden’s heaving chest to look him in the eyes, the glimpse of vulnerability is gone, replaced by a reckless desire. His lips are wet and pulled back; he looks hungry, like an animal, and Holden wants to be devoured, wants every inch of his flesh plowed under and taken by his touch. 

“I want you inside me.” Holden whispers, raggedly, his head dropping back against the sheets. 

Bill plasters a kiss against his inner thigh before rising from the bed. He leaves Holden laying there trembling while he goes to the suitcase and fishes out the Vaseline. When he comes back, he strips quickly out of his clothes, and crawls back between Holden’s legs. 

Holden wraps his legs around Bill’s waist to draw him closer, and loops an arm around his neck to pull him down into a kiss. Their mouths collide in a sloppy, lavish kiss that trades glazing saliva and panting breaths while Bill’s fingers slip between them, slick and decisive; they rub up against Holden’s opening in a few breath-taking circles before the index pushes its way inside. 

Their mouths break apart as Holden gasps aloud and arches up against the pressure of Bill’s hand.

“Oh my god-” Holden groans, cracking his eyelids open to glimpse Bill’s burning gaze. “Yes, yes…”

Bill pumps his finger in deep, curling strokes that rapidly melt away resistance and leave Holden whimpering for more. He tucks his feet against Bill’s upper thighs and uses his sturdy weight as leverage to rock down against the penetration. He tosses his head back, and preens beneath Bill’s appreciative gaze, allowing a few gratuitous cries to spill from his mouth for Bill’s benefit. 

Bill slides a second finger inside as Holden’s hole begins to relax to his touch. They go deep together, curling, dragging generously across his prostate where hidden pleasure lurks and bursts free against the skilled touch. 

“Oh, Jesus!” Holden cries, his body arching sharply against the sudden hot wave of arousal that crests through him. “Bill, fuck-” 

Bill chuckles, softly, amused by his trembling. He clutches Holden’s hip to pin him down while he keeps his pace consistent, steadily pumping Holden open in between teasing strokes against that sweet, tender spot deep inside. 

“Please …” Holden moans, clutching both hands over his face to quell his rising pleasure. “God- I need you inside me before I come.”

Bill’s hand withdraws, and Holden quivers against the sheets. Curling his fingers away from his eyes, he keeps his knuckles clutched over his mouth as he peeks up at Bill. His cheeks are so hot with overwhelming need, and he can feel his heartbeat percussive in his chest as if coming from underwater. He can’t tell if it’s the alcohol making him weak, or Bill, or a combination of both, but he could simply cry at the sight of Bill’s hand stroking Vaseline over his cock, guiding it to his opening. 

Everything suspends. The bourbon-soaked seconds slipping past like a river grind to a crawl, and the rush of his blood turns to successive thuds that he can feel down into bones. Bill is looking at him like he has the universe bleeding out of his eyes. 

_ Make love to me.  _ But it feels like more than that. He doesn’t have words for it this time. 

Bill draws him close, one hand clutching at Holden’s thigh to drag his legs around him, while the other slips underneath to cradle him by the nape. He feels small and helpless inside the embrace as Bill’s cock rocks into him, fusing them together deeply, but he doesn’t at all resent the sense of powerlessness; Bill’s arms are warm and secure, and his mouth is leaving a pattern of kisses down Holden’s cheeks, mouth, and throat. His breath is hot, his eyes afire; they’re looking at each other, looking and not looking away. He doesn’t want it to end. 

***

Holden’s skin is like spun silk beneath Bill’s fingers, and it glows like unblemished cream in the soft wash of lamplight.

Bill focuses on the rises, dips, and curves of his bare back, tracing out every inch between nape and tailbone, ignoring the fact that Holden is staring at him. 

It’s been almost twenty minutes since they both came and collapsed to the sheets. Neither of them have spoken aside from choked whispers of satisfaction and sighs of pleasure. 

Holden is laying on his belly with his arms crossed under his cheek, and Bill is on his side facing him - facing him, but gazing stubbornly at the soft skin of his back. He likes the way goosebumps ripple over Holden’s skin, the way he shudders and almost moans when Bill’s fingertips find tender spots at the back of his neck and the dip of his spine. But more than that, he likes the distraction. 

He’s always worried that he’s revealed too much in their encounters. Layer by layer, Holden keeps peeling him back. The defenses rise up, they crumble; the needs which have lurked at the bottom of his soul for as long as he can recall climb the rungs of his ribs up to his heart before he kicks them down where they belong again, but they keep coming back. When Holden whispered, “Make love to me,” he should have been smart. He should have said, “you’re drunk” and put Holden to bed. Instead, he gave in the way he always does. 

“It was true.” Holden whispers, the sound of his voice softly shattering the silence. 

Bill instinctively looks up to meet his eyes. “What’s true?”

“What I told Brassel and Chambers about my mom.”

Bill’s fingers pause at the bottom of Holden’s lower back. There’s a little dimple there right above his asscheek that always entrances Bill’s gaze; he stares at it now, wondering where this prelude is leading. 

“I had slept with a few girls.” Holden says, at length, “And she thought I was ruined because I didn’t save myself for marriage, but I didn’t care at the time.”

“You do now?” Bill asks, offering a hoarse chuckle. “After what we just did?”

“No. She was right.”

“Right?”

“I shouldn’t have been with some of those girls. There were so many times where I was trying so hard not to want something else - someone else.” 

Bill momentarily closes his eyes. “Holden-”

“When you were making love to me just now, I closed my eyes and started thinking about how I felt all those years ago with women. I thought about what would have happened if I had met you sooner, if I felt this -  _ let myself _ feel it earlier. I had myself convinced for so long that the connections I had with women could only be with women, and that what I felt with men was wrong and disgusting. But what I feel when we’re together is something … different.”

Bill doesn’t reply. He keeps focusing on tracing the soft skin on Holden’s lower back. A small voice in the back of his head, like that of a terrified animal coaxed free of its cage, wants to agree with the sentiment, but he keeps his mouth shut. 

Glimpsing Bill’s tense expression, Holden sighs, “Sorry. I’m just thinking out loud.”

Despite the apology, they lay quietly for only a few moments longer before he says, “I think, over all, my mom would be more disappointed in me than angry. She wouldn’t talk to me for a little while, but she would get over it eventually. She’s very religious, but she’s very kind. She believes in forgiveness.”

“She sounds like a good mom.” Bill says, rubbing a hand between Holden’s shoulder blades. “You’re lucky to have her.”

“What about your mom?” Holden asks, casting Bill a curious gaze. “What was she like?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Because, I think our mothers' opinions of us matter. More than anyone or anything else. Us men are so quick to judge and be harsh, but not women - not good mothers. They see the good in us when no one else does.”

Bill draws in a deep breath, and averts his gaze. He could have chosen to cut off the conversation, but he’s had a few drinks; besides, he can’t stop Holden from profiling him so he should at least set the record straight. 

“My mom-” He says, quietly, clearing his throat against a hoarse rasp, “-she was a good person, just … misguided.”

“What does that mean?”

“She got caught up with my father when she was very young. He was a lot older than her, and he was a mean, manipulative bastard. She pretended to be strong, but she never recovered from that relationship even after he left. By then, she was … resigned to her victimhood.”

Holden lifts his head from the cradle of his arms, and pushes up onto his elbows. His gaze clings intently to Bill’s, absorbing these fine details pouring out of Bill like water from a broken dam. 

“How so?” He asks. 

“She let a lot of people abuse her.” Bill says, running his hand over Holden’s shoulder, “Men, for the most part.”

Holden purses his lips, and gives a slight nod. His eyes are faintly misty as if he can understand the breadth and gravity of Bill’s history in just a few words; and Bill feels his chest sink, the terrified drop of having no cushion, no barrier between him, Holden, and the truth. 

“Did they abuse you, too?” Holden asks, quietly. 

Bill retracts his hand from Holden’s shoulder, and sits upright, rubbing a hand over his face. The warmth of the room seems to have sapped away, leaving behind a panicked chill. He wants to take back the admission, take back this entire night. 

“I’m sorry.” Holden says, hurriedly. “You don’t have to answer that. That was too personal.”

“No, shit.” Bill says, climbing to his feet. “Save your family history questions for the interviews, all right?”

Holden pushes himself upright, and clutches the sheets to his chest. Bill can feel the weight of his gaze as he grabs his cigarettes from the nightstand and lights one. 

“I’m sorry.” Holden repeats. 

“It’s fine. Let’s just get to bed.”

After they get cleaned up, Bill turns out the lights and crawls into the bed beside Holden. Even in the darkness, he can sense that Holden’s eyes are open and combing through the shadows to study him. 

Bill releases an impatient sigh. “Fine.”

“What?” 

“Just say whatever you’re thinking so I can go to sleep.”

“I’m really not trying to pry.”

“Yeah. Right.” Bill mutters, fixing his gaze toward the ceiling. 

“I’m not. It’s just- …” Holden pushes up onto his elbow, and reaches out to touch Bill’s shoulder. “I didn’t know your mom, but I’d like to think that if she was so unhappy and unloved that she wouldn’t want the same thing for you. She’d be relieved that someone- … that you were cared for.”

Bill curls his fists tighter around the hem of the sheet gathered at his chest. His chest feels heavy, his thoughts calamitous. Whenever his desires for other men arise, he’s always thought of one thing only - a hot day in August when he was thirteen, one of many boyfriends that had followed the departure of his father, an indecent hand on his thigh, the sick turn of his stomach when he realized what was happening. He’d never thought of his mother or what she wanted for him. 

He clears his throat, fighting back the knotted lump. 

“That’s a nice thought.” He says, stiffly. “But what she wanted never much mattered in the real world, all right? She can’t come back from the grave to change the law.”

Holden sighs, softly, but doesn’t argue. He tucks his head against the pillow, snuggles closer to Bill’s side, and goes quiet until his breathing falls into the heavy pattern of sleep. 

Bill is awake for a long time after Holden goes limp against his shoulder. He looks up into the darkness, chasing the circling pursuit of his thoughts. He’s been following the same line of thinking for years, but now that it’s been disrupted, he can’t ignore his emotions or his wants any longer. He can’t ignore the fact that Holden hadn’t just admitted that he cares about him; he’d very nearly let the word  _ love  _ spill from his lips. The thought all but sets Bill aflame. 

***

The victory in Adairsville doesn’t last long. 

Bill is quiet on the plane ride home, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead or pretending to nap under his sunglasses. Tucked in the window seat, Holden watches the clouds and sunlight drift past with a mounting dread rising up in his belly next to the hangover fatigue. The details of the night before are fuzzy, but he remembers asking Bill to make love to him and what came after - probing, personal questions that, when sober, he knows he shouldn't be asking. He wonders if he went too far, a mistake he seems to be making more often than not these days. 

After Bill drops him off at home, Holden spends the rest of the evening turning over last night’s conversation in his mind. 

_ Did they abuse you, too?  _

There had been a flash of something in Bill’s eyes - defensive anger instinctively rising to conceal deep, old scarring. A hint of the truth he would never admit to on his own. That kind of a brief glimpse can’t begin to scratch the surface or explain in any detail the story of the past, but Holden can’t help all of the conclusions his mind begins to draw or the way that newly refracted light slightly alters his understanding of their relationship from the beginning until now. 

The next day, Holden slips into Bill’s office before their nine o’clock meeting with Wendy to discuss the next batch of interviews. 

Bill’s squinted gaze is guarded behind a sheen of cigarette smoke as he looks up from the paperwork spread on his desk. 

“Can we talk?” Holden asks, easing away from the door frame and further into the office. 

“What about?”

Holden bites his lower lip in hesitation before turning to scan the bullpen behind them. The room is almost empty, but he pushes the door shut.

Bill draws in a deep breath, and shifts defensively in his chair as the latch clicks shut, ensuring their privacy. 

“Holden-”

“I think I overstepped.”

They both pause, quietly analyzing one another. Bill’s jaw ripples with tension before his gaze cuts away. 

“I just wanted to put that out there, and get ahead of it.”

“Get ahead of it?” Bill echoes, the corners of his eyes pinching with annoyance. “Of what?”

Holden clenches his jaw, and gestures at Bill’s rigid posture. “This. I realize now I shouldn’t have asked about-”

“Look,” Bill interrupts, standing to his feet, “We’re at work. This isn’t the time or place, all right?”

“Okay, then can we talk later?”

Bill crushes his cigarette in the ashtray, and moves out from behind the desk. His shoulders are squared up like he’s walking into the ring to fight for his life. 

“We just spent two days in Georgia.” Bill says, pausing to stare Holden down with cutting, pale eyes. “Before that, we both worked close to fifty hours. I haven’t properly spent time with my wife or my son in over a week. And you want me to give you more time to ‘talk’ later?”

“‘Talk’?” Holden says, mimicking the disdainful tone of Bill’s voice. “Why are you saying it that way?”

“Because, you and I do not need to talk.” Bill says, jabbing a finger between them. “That’s where we ran into the issue. We were good when we weren’t talking, when it was just-”

“Oh my god, please. Is this about the ‘making love’ thing? I was drunk.”

“Not  _ that  _ drunk.” 

Holden glares at Bill’s defiant expression, the glacial sheen of his gaze. His eyes had been like open windows only a night ago, offering a moment of true emotion. He had been open, defenseless, soft; and now they’re both paying the price for those brief seconds in time. 

“We’ve got work to do.” Bill says, finally. 

He shoulders past Holden, leaving him staring at the empty desk and the smoking remnants of his cigarette. After a moment, Holden forces his bewildered mouth shut, and turns to leave the office. 

Ed’s letters are hanging on the wall, and they silently mock him with the knowledge that a deranged killer seems to be the only person who cares for him right now, who’s longing for his company.

That poisonous thought is only reinforced over the next few days, first by Debbie and their dissension over Devier’s guilt, and then by the newspaper article in the  _ Atlanta Constitution.  _ Bill is frustrated, and Wendy adds herself to the list of people who are angry with Holden right this moment. 

The trip down to visit the Floyd County DA is terse and silent, the plane ride back even worse. The dreadful, sinking feeling in his stomach coils tighter; and when he gets home, Debbie is waiting for him. 

He hadn’t expected the break-up to hurt as badly as it did. He maintains a calm facade as he walks away from her apartment, but once he gets behind the wheel to drive home, the crushing gravity of unraveling consequences hits him in the chest.

Despite his stoic resistance, a tear cuts hotly down his cheek. He squeezes his fingers around the wheel until his knuckles ache, and the pressure in his chest releases with a quiet, choked sob. A breath of cool, night air rustles past the open window, and he wants to scream into the night - to ask God, or anyone who might be listening, what he has done to deserve everything he’s been working for going to shit in just a matter of days. 

That night, he can't sleep thinking about Devier and Lisa, Roger Wade and all those innocent school children, Debbie and how his image of her in his future has already faded; but mostly, he thinks about Bill - whether or not he was loved in childhood or even his own marriage, whether or not he’s ever been happy, whether or not Holden has changed that fact or only made it worse. If he’s made everything worse. 

The next day, he goes to work sleep-deprived and morose. The message from The California Medical Facility is sitting on his desk, and while he’s making the phone call and hearing about Ed’s suicide attempt, Shephard comes in appearing incensed. 

Holden hadn’t thought he could become anymore disillusioned, but the OPR has the Speck tape. No one mentions Devier or the fact that they put a child rapist behind bars. No one remembers Beverly Jean or the justice they’d fought tooth and nail for. The only person who seems to recall the root cause and motivation of Holden’s ideas is sitting across the country, chained to a hospital bed - and he’s only a plane ticket away. 

  
  
  
  



	5. gilded cages

Holden spends two days in Vacaville - one of them largely under sedation, the other lucid and gazing despairingly at the ugly, white tiles on the ceiling of his hospital room. It takes him that entire day to pick up the phone. He’d gone through a list of people he could call in his head, inspecting and discarding each one before eventually circling back around to Bill each time. For one reason or another, he wouldn’t want anyone else but Bill to see him this way, and if he's being honest, no one else would be willing to drop everything and fly cross-country to retrieve him.

As he’d expected, Bill is enraged, but he still feels too weak and drained to be offended. The lingering panic and dread in his chest pinches like a thousand needles working slowly into his lungs, a gradual torture opposed to the pure hysteria of the first day. 

Holden spends most of the plane ride home watching Bill's terse profile from the corner of his eye and worrying that the feeling of the borrowed shirt on his back will be the last bit of intimacy he’s ever going to feel between them. It isn’t what he wants, not what he’d planned, not at all what he’d predicted on that first night they’d spent together in Altoona. Stubbornly, he hadn't believed Bill when he said they wouldn't last; now the idea that he’s close to losing what they had together makes the horror knotted in his chest compound. 

When Bill pulls his car up to the curb in front of Holden’s apartment, he turns to cast him a stern gaze that barely betrays a hint of concern. 

“Are you going to be okay from here?”

Holden nods, stiffly. 

“All right. If you need anything …”

Holden takes off his seatbelt, and shoves the door open without answering. 

“You’re welcome.” Bill says, his tone dripping with irritated sarcasm. 

Holden pauses with his hand on the door frame and his foot on the curb. He presses his eyes shut against the warm, night air, and the rising threat of reckless impulse. He should end things right here and start over - no more Debbie and no more Bill - but his foolish heart and body don’t want to listen to reason. 

Turning back around, he ducks down to cast Bill a hopeful gaze. “Can you come up for a minute?”

Bill’s frown deepens. “Nancy is expecting me back soon.”

“Just ten minutes? I think we should talk about this before work on Monday.”

“We talked on the plane. What else is there to talk about?”

“Fine.” Holden says, exasperated. “We don’t have to talk.”

Their gazes hold over the tawdry insinuation for several stifled moments before Bill sighs and shuts off the engine. He follows Holden into the building and across the deserted lobby to the elevator. At almost ten o’clock, no one else is moving around the building, and their footfalls echo a hollow cadence over the humming silence. 

When they reach his apartment, Bill takes the suitcase and the plastic bag the facility had put Holden’s personal belongings in so that Holden can unlock the door. He walks into the apartment ahead of Holden to put the bags on the kitchen counter, and turns slowly to gaze at him from across the room. 

Holden lets the door swing shut behind him, hearing the latch click with a thud of finality. He stands still, almost shivering beneath Bill’s stare that’s cloaked in the heavy, yellow-lit shadows of the room. 

Bill’s hands curl impatiently at his sides. “Well?”

Holden swallows hard. “Well what?”

“Do you want to do this?” Bill asks, gesturing a restless hand between them. 

“Yes.”

“Okay, then.”

Bill saunters towards him, and Holden pushes away from the door to meet him halfway. A brusque hand clutches at his upper arm to drag him in while the other notches underneath his jaw, thumb pushing his head back. 

Each point of contact burns Holden’s restive nerves. He draws in a staggered breath as Bill looms over him, his gaze tracking across Holden’s heavy-lidded, glazed eyes and trembling mouth. His fingers tighten around Holden’s arm, pinching toward the point of bruising. 

_ Don’t hurt me.  _ The thought races unbidden across the back of Holden’s mind, a hesitation mark on the canvas of their relationship that he’d never imagined he would see. It doesn’t manage to surpass his trembling lips. 

Bill kisses him, abruptly, forcefully. The hard drag of his lips ignites stinging friction that’s punctuated by the sharp jolt of his teeth against Holden’s lower lip. The bitten spot is immediately soothed by the swipe of his tongue, but Holden whimpers nonetheless, trying in vain to return the powerful need wrapped up in the viscous strokes with his own. 

Pressing his eyes shut, he tentatively opens his mouth to let Bill’s tongue inside, hoping that the familiar taste and invasion will spark some kind of primal need inside him. Momentarily, his body is vacant of that familiar burn and clench of desire, his belly hollow with dread rather than heavy with need. It doesn’t feel like arousal, but he doesn’t want Bill to let him go.

Bill grunts a muted sound of satisfaction as his tongue curls across Holden’s pliant tongue and palate. Cradling Holden’s cheeks in both hands, he guides his head back and to the side so that he can dominate the kiss with almost suffocating pressure.

Staggering into Bill’s chest, Holden clutches at the front of his shirt with one hand and loops the other over Bill’s shoulder. His knees feel weak, like he’s turning to water, like he’s welling up inside, and the borders of his body are going to saturate and melt; and Bill is the only thing left holding him all together. 

As Bill walks them back toward the couch at a fast clip, Holden stumbles beneath the determined stride, and tumbles back against the cushions. The kiss breaks off, releasing the mounting, overwhelmed whimper from Holden’s thundering chest. His own panic and dread rise up with sudden force, outlining the imposing shape of Bill’s body lunging between his thighs with a black cloud. He tries to tell himself that this is what he wants as Bill kisses him again, but he can’t breathe with Bill on top of him, smothering him. He can’t feel any other racing impulse inside his body except for panic. 

When Bill’s mouth lifts again, Holden draws in a gasping breath. The corners of his vision spark with oxygen-deprived stars, and it takes him a moment to address the position of his trembling limbs on the couch again. By the time he lifts his head deliriously from the arm of the couch, Bill is pushing up the hem of the shirt to expose his heaving belly and puckering nipples. 

A choked cry tears free of Holden’s throat as Bill's hand on his jaw tilts his head back again, exposing the length of his throat. His mouth brands itself against Holden’s neck, leaving biting kisses and suck-bruises scattered down into the hollow of his collarbones. As his mouth blazes lower, scorching against tender nipples, Holden twists away from the sting of stark sensation. 

“Bill, wait-” He whimpers, reaching down to clutch at Bill’s nape.

Bill lifts his head. His brow is set with a frown, concern breaching the glazed desire in his eyes. 

“What?” He asks, his palm still sliding down Holden’s ribs toward his trousers. 

“Wait. Just wait.” Holden pants, squeezing his eyes shut. 

He grabs at Bill’s wrist, halting the definitive path towards his disappointingly soft groin. Panic and nausea simmer in his belly, cropping dreadful goosebumps along his naked skin. 

“Jesus.” Bill mutters, pulling away. 

Holden creeps dampening eyelids open to glimpse Bill leaning back on his heels, fingers massaging his knitted brow. 

“No, it’s okay. I’ll be fine in a minute. I just need-”

“No, you won’t. And I’m gonna go.” Bill says, climbing to his feet. His face is tense with frustration despite the half-hard lump of a flagging erection pressed to the crotch of his trousers.

Holden watches him retreat with quietly mounting horror until he manages to wrangle his trembling limbs up from the couch. He seizes Bill by the arm, and pulls him back around. Throwing himself against Bill’s chest, he loops an arm around his neck, and drags them closer. 

“No, hold on.” He whispers, his voice low and raspy against Bill’s chin. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

Bill frowns as Holden crowds against him, plastering desperate kisses to his mouth, cheek, and throat. 

“Holden-” He begins, his tone strained with a protest. 

“See. I’m okay.”

Clutching Bill’s knuckles, Holden draws his hand between them, and clasps Bill’s palm over his groin. His body manages a faint quiver of heat, an obligatory reaction to a warm grasp on his cock, but nothing like the persistent need that had once erupted between them at Bill’s slightest touch.

Bill sighs a sound of resignation against Holden’s cheek, but doesn't resist Holden forcing his hand over his unresponsive groin. 

Holden’s kisses slow to a halt against the warm crook of Bill’s neck as his desperate straining fails to come to fruition. His fingers go limp around Bill’s wrist, allowing the forced touch to drift away while he sinks down against Bill’s chest. Burying his face into the familiar warmth, he presses his eyes shut and tries not to cry that his body doesn’t want to be caressed or pleasured - it just wants to be held.

Bill stands utterly still for a few seconds, just long enough for Holden to think he might offer a scrap of comfort, but eventually, he grips Holden by the shoulders to break them apart. 

“This was a mistake.” Bill says, his voice low and taut. “So, I’m gonna go now.”

“But-”

“No. No ‘but’s’. I told you to get some rest, and get your shit together - and that’s exactly what you’re going to do. After tonight, we’re done with all of  _ this _ .” He says, jabbing an irritated hand at Holden’s quivering chin and gleaming eyes. 

Holden quickly rubs a hand under his eye, and glances away. He nods stiffly. 

“This is not my job. It’s not on me to give you a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on. This isn’t that.  _ We  _ aren’t that.”

“Okay.” Holden says, his voice steeling itself against a tremor. “I get it, Bill. You never actually gave a shit about me.”

Bill’s eyes flash with anger and his mouth curls with disgust. “Don’t start that.”

“What?”

“Trying to fucking guilt-trip me when you’re the one who didn’t walk away like I told you to. How many times did I tell you, huh?”

Holden doesn’t answer. His throat is too knotted up with crashing emotion to argue. 

Bill shakes his head, and scoffs coarsely under his breath, “Christ, I warned you this would happen. And you said from the beginning that you understood we’re not ‘dating’ or some shit, that it was purely about sex. So if we’re not having sex, then what the fuck are we doing here?”

Holden blinks against rising hurt and anger. “I don’t know, Bill. I really don’t know anymore.”

Bill scoffs, throwing up his hands. He turns in a tight circle and paces away, rubbing a hand over his forehead and across his mouth to quell hitched, panicked breaths. 

Holden can feel the weight of this night crushing his chest, all of their choices crashing down around them. The perfect little cocoon of a fantasy that he’d strung around them like webbing is ripping apart, perfect daylight casting itself across nighttime improprieties to reveal them in all their real, raw brokenness. Something which had once looked like freedom to him now feels like a gilded cage entrapping his wounded heart. 

Bill shakes his head, giving a small, choked laugh. 

“This is ridiculous.” He whispers, turning slowly to regard Holden with faint disgust. “I must have lost my damn mind. I’m not a fucking faggot. Maybe you are, but I’m not. I’m married. I have a wife, a child for God’s sake. We work for the FBI. If anyone ever found out about this, our careers would be over. We’d be burned at the fucking stake. And now I know I can’t trust you since you think it’s acceptable to walk out on OPR and fly to California to visit Kemper. I have no idea what crazy, impulsive choice you’re going to make next, and I can’t let you take me down with you.” 

Holden stares at him with his mouth dangling halfway open. He feels like he’s been gut-punched without warning though he should have expected this. He should have expected it long ago. That realization doesn’t stop the wounded rage from rising up out of the crumbling ashes of their once gratifying connection.

“If that’s how you feel, then maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore.” He says, waving a helpless hand as his vision blurs. “I’ve tried, Bill. I’ve tried to understand you and this. I’m sorry I was upset with OPR, and I’m sorry I went to California without telling you, and I’m sorry I asked too many questions about your life growing up and-”

“This isn’t about that.” Bill says, sharply.

Holden shakes his head, a choked laugh of disbelief emitting from the back of his throat. 

“What?” Bill demands. “What part of this is funny?”

“Nothing’s funny. But you’re a fucking liar, Bill. I can see very clearly that it is about that. And if you want to let it dictate your happiness for the rest of your life, fine. I can’t stop you from doing exactly what your mother did - resigning yourself to victimhood.”

For a moment, Bill looks so incensed that Holden wonders if he might charge across the room and punch him in the mouth. And he wonders if he would duck or if he would simply stand there and take it. Instead, Bill is quiet until the red flush fades a bit from his cheeks and his hands uncurl from white-knuckled fists at his sides. 

“You’re right.” He says, “I don’t think we should do this anymore.” 

“Yeah, well,” Holden whispers, crossing his arms tightly across his chest, “I shouldn’t be surprised. Like you said, you gave me fair warning that it was a bad idea.”

“I guess you’ve finally learned your lesson then.”

“Yeah, Bill, I suppose I have.” 

They share a quiet, disappointed gaze for a long moment before Bill turns to leave. As the door swings shut behind him, he doesn’t look back. The sound of the latch hitting the frame resonates against the empty loneliness of his apartment. 

Holden walks numbly to the kitchen counter to unpack his personal items from the plastic bag. His badge, his gun, his wallet. The little pieces of him carried back from California. Then he takes the prescription bottle of Valium out of the recesses of the suitcase, and stares at his name emblazoned on the label until it begins to blur. 

Bracing his hands against the edge of the counter, he leans forward and tucks his chin against his chest to fight the wave of despair that comes over him. A single tear breaks free of his eyelashes and splashes to the floor before he manages to suck in a deep breath, shove it all down, convince himself that he’s going to be perfectly fine. 

_ A fresh start. No Shepard, no Debbie, no Bill. Just work, and a handful of pills.  _

He pops one of the Valium tablets at the bathroom sink before realizing how badly he still smells of CMF. He hasn’t properly bathed in three days after all. 

He strips carefully out of Bill’s shirt, and drops it unceremoniously to the ground where it lands in a blue puddle on the white tile of his bathroom. He tries to disregard it as he climbs into the shower and turns the water on hot, almost too hot to handle; it doesn’t smell like Bill anymore, only the stench of Vacaville and a near-death experience, his own sweat and the fragmented remains of their relationship. 

***

Bill has heard of long-term prisoners earning their freedom after years of parole hearings getting back out into the real world only to immediately commit a new crime which will undoubtedly land them back behind bars again. They prefer the familiar comfort of a ten-by-ten foot cell and a regimented daily routine to the terrifying freedom and possibility of a future on the outside; it’s ingrained in them to accept the shackles, to be told what to do and when to do it. 

As he parks his car in the driveway of his house and stares up at the yellow light glowing from the front window, he realizes he understands the psychology; after over ten years of studying the human mind, that facet of backwards impulse has never been more clear. 

He shuts off the engine, and sits in the dark silence listening to the chirp of crickets for another five minutes before he exits the car. He climbs the front steps up to the porch, ignoring the weak tremble in his knees and the quiver in his chest.

He hasn’t cried about anything in years, and he isn’t going to start now. The reckless fling with Holden is over; he can accept that, can live with it. He has to. 

When he creeps into the house, most of the lights are off. He makes his way down the shadowed halls until he reaches the bedrooms. 

Brian’s door stands halfway open. His small figure is curled into the fetal position, and he’s hugging his teddy bear as if his life depends on it. The Superman night light casts the room in a red-blue hue that’s meant to chase away monsters. He’s been afraid of the dark for as long as Bill can remember, and no amount of checking under the bed and in the closet before bedtime could change it. He’s tried, Nancy’s tried; some fears never change. 

Bill goes in briefly to drop a kiss on Brian’s head. He does it for his own sake, to remind himself that he should be a father first and not anything else. He can’t turn into the absent, uncaring man his own father had been no matter his life’s traumas. If Brian is here in this gilded cage with him, he has to accept the bars standing between him and his wants. 

Brian is still sleeping soundly when Bill retreats from the room. Around the corner, Nancy is lying on her back with the sheets down around her waist. His eyes have yet to adjust to the dark, and he doesn’t realize she’s still awake until she pushes up onto her elbows. 

“Bill?”

“Sorry it’s so late.” He whispers, bending down to take off his boots. 

“It’s okay. Is Holden all right?”

“Yeah, fine.”

She sinks back down against the sheets with a quiet sigh. “That’s good.”

Bill strips down his underwear, and crawls into bed beside her. Rolling onto his side, he huddles close and wraps an arm around her waist. 

“What’s the matter?” She whispers, rubbing a hand over his tense forearm. 

“Nothing. It was a long day.”

She’s quiet for a moment, reading the lie in his voice. It’s a dance they perform often, choosing whether or not to pursue each other’s dishonesty. 

“He’s not hurt, is he?” She asks, finally. 

“No. Just bone-headed, that’s all.”

“Okay. You just seem upset.”

Bill tucks his cheek tighter against her shoulder, and presses his eyes shut. Part of him wants to admit everything to her just to relieve the weight on his shoulders, and because, despite their issues, she might be the only person who would ever forgive him his wrongdoings. It’s a selfish thought, though. Admittance would mean destroying everything, all he has left, and her life, too.

“It’s nothing.” He whispers, eventually. 

“Are you sure-”

“It’s late, Nance. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

He can feel her staring at him in the darkness, but she doesn’t say anything. She knows when he uses that tone of voice that she should stop asking questions. 

“Okay.” She says, holding up a hand in resignation. 

Eventually she rolls over, and her breathing drops off into the staggered cadence of sleep.

Bill is awake for a long time, turning over Holden’s accusation in his head. He can still see his mother’s face in his mind when he finally explained to her what Fred had been doing to him. They had fled in the middle of the night, and for a time, he thought she might be done with selfish, abusive assholes like his father and Fred. Instead, a year later, they were living with another boyfriend, and she was hiding black eyes underneath layers of makeup and a forced smile. 

***

**March, 1980**

**8 months later**

**Fredericksburg, Virginia**

On the last Sunday that they went to church as a family, right before the discovery of a child’s body in Nancy’s first real estate listing, Bill wasn’t sure if he believed in God or not, but he was willing to try, or at least pretend, for Nancy’s sake. After seeing the chalky outline of young Daniel’s body on the basement floor and getting the details of the crime from Detective Spencer, that fragile tenacity began slipping beyond his grasp. 

He had no idea what was coming next. 

God could not have planned his own son being involved in the death of a toddler. Perhaps fate or karma or some other vengeful force in the universe, but not God - not the one Nancy so strongly believes in. As the belief settles uncomfortably on his shoulders, he realizes he’d lost his faith long ago because God couldn’t have planned his disastrous desires, every trespass with another man, but most of all, the short-lived, torrid affair with Holden. To give him something which made him feel so completely alive for the first time in years only to judge it as wrong and take it away in a few months' time is nothing short of terrible and cruel, no act of divinity. 

Without further discussion on the subject following the night Bill brought Holden back from Vacaville, they had both tried to continue on at work as if nothing happened. Not much about the interviews changed, but Bill can feel the undercurrent of hurt and mistrust between them every time Holden so much as glances at him. A part of him wishes he could take back every second of their affair because it had only ended in grief the way he’d predicted it would, and he would rather have not experienced the good moments if he has to suffer this way twice as much. He’s sure Holden feels the same way, but they never discuss it. 

Bill, however, can’t focus on that wound that seems to refuse healing. The weeks after Brian’s confession to the police are a dizzying whirlwind of new information, meetings with the DA, the social worker, the psychologist, and the police, all of them strangers intent on altering the course of his son’s future. They’re too busy juggling all of the efforts to shield Brian from the harsh consequences in between Bill’s commuting to Atlanta for him to think much about God or fate, but the evidence is stacking up quickly. 

On the last Friday in March, Bill wakes up early, three hours prior to their set appointment with Dr. Moritz. Nancy sleeps curled up on her side with her back to him as if she’s flinching away from the cruelty of the world. He does his best to be quiet as he creeps out of bed, retrieves some clothes from the closet, and slips out of the room. 

Half an hour later, he’s driving toward Oak Hill Cemetery with a bouquet of roses and carnations in the passenger’s seat. The newly risen sun melts in blinding orange across the pavement ahead that’s devoid of heavy traffic at this early hour. The sky is unencumbered by clouds and there’s a slight breeze, the perfect day. When he gets to the cemetery, there’s no one but the dead lying peacefully beneath wind-swept trees and bluebird skies. 

Clutching the bouquet in one hand and his cigarette in the other, Bill trudges up the slope to his mother’s resting spot. 

The headstone stands out from among the others because it’s a monumental piece of rock, the figurine of an angel carved from stone and hovering over the plaque that states her full name and the years of her life, a brief sixty-five cut short by terminal cancer. He had paid quite the price for the impressive memorial, perhaps more than some people might have considered necessary; but she’d never had anything of value in life and no one to protect her. He had thought that, in death, she should at least have someone watching over her even if it was just the fictional visage of a heavenly creature. 

He lays the bouquet at the winged sentinel’s feet, and stands back to look over the solitude of the grave. A breeze drifts across the knoll, gently nudging overhead leaves to clap a raspy tune. Despite the six years that have passed, standing here always makes his chest knot and quiver, but today more than ever before. 

He presses his eyes shut against the sudden sting of tears, and draws in a steadying breath. 

_ Mom, I’ve let you down. If you were here right now, you wouldn’t be very proud …  _

He never speaks to her out loud, but in his thoughts, he can imagine she hears him, every apology that he’s been repeating for years. 

_ I don’t pray anymore. I know you’d be angry about that, but you always said I should be sincere when I pray - and I can’t be sincere anymore. Not after all the shit I’ve seen. Not after Brian …  _

Pressing his fingertips to his eyelids, he quickly smothers the sting of tears, and brings his cigarette to his quivering lips. When his gaze drifts open again, the grave below him is fuzzy. 

_ Christ, I’m sorry I ever resented you for what happened. I understand you better now. The guilt of not making the right choices, messing up over and over no matter how hard I try, wondering if I could have done something different for my child to change the outcome. And, please, don’t ask about Nancy, or commitment, or love - I’ve ruined everything.  _

There’s no answer. There never is. But he feels better admitting it to someone, even if his mother is beyond his reach. 

Bill crouches down in front of the grave, and puts his hand on the cold stone. 

On his and Nancy’s wedding day, his mother had kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “Are you happy?” He’d said yes, and she smiled. “Well, that’s all I ever wanted.” 

_ All you ever wanted.  _ He thinks, now, rising to his feet and stomping his cigarette into the grass.  _ But at what cost? Where’s the limit?  _

For the first time in six years, he’s grateful that she can’t respond. At least this way, he can construct her in his mind, her gentility, her graciousness, the answer he’s longed for but never quite believed in:  _ Son, there is no limit to love.  _ He’d like to think it’s something she would say and not just his imagination. For someone who hadn’t experienced much of it in her life, she’d believed in love until the very end. 

***

**May, 1980**

**Atlanta, Georgia**

In eight month’s time, everything changes. The once raw, open wound of Bill’s rejection slowly scabs over, forming scar tissue that’s thick and numb. Holden spends too much time reminding himself that they’re partners and co-workers only again. He fills in his loneliness with long hours in the basement and meticulous prep work on their interview subjects, avoiding his empty apartment at all costs; but when he goes down to Atlanta for Hance and Pierce and hears about the missing and murdered children, the fire in his belly to understand these killers rekindles with consuming force. 

Like the gaping maw of some kind of beast, Atlanta swallows him whole. 

When the FBI is officially called in and he and Bill are sent down for the duration, he goes willingly, and lets the case demand every scrap of his attention. He dreams about new facets of the profile, what move they might make next, and when he wakes up in the morning, the smell of the humid streets is in his nostrils and the faces of the victims are etched in his mind; he sinks into it, submerged, sleep-deprived, yet dedicated. 

Bill, on the other hand, is more distracted than ever. 

Holden understands Bill’s dedication to his family, but there's no way to explain the increasing absences and the guarded behavior as the weeks of ATKID extend; and Bill won't tell him a thing. He had thought that even though their private relationship ended Bill could still talk to him, but maybe it’s just another reason for Bill to keep him in the dark. 

Even so, Holden keeps pressing for details, but Bill only seems to shut down further and further with every disagreement that arises about his weekend trips back to Virginia and his lack of focus on the case. It isn’t until they’re a month in, when they’re standing over the river - the Atlanta Monster’s new dumping ground - that it all comes bursting free. 

Bill’s son, involved in the murder of a child. His marriage on the brink of crashing and burning. No wonder he’s been distracted. 

Holden feels sick to his stomach as they stand in the midday heat with sweat rolling down their cheeks, glaring back and forth at one another with the buzz of insects and the steady rush of the river roaring over their silences. For a moment, Holden wants to scream that Bill could have trusted him, could have told him, could have confided in him; but as Bill turns and walks back to where Jim is waiting for them to discuss strategy going forward, he knows it wouldn’t do any good. 

A week later, the new tactic of surveilling the bridges is in full swing. On Friday night, even the disappearance of the sun and a nighttime breeze can’t entirely stifle the muggy, suffocating heat. 

Holden rolls down both windows and loosens his tie with a heavy sigh. The bridge, canopied in darkness perforated solely by a flickering, yellow street lamp, is already burning itself into his mind. 

The uniformed officer he’s paired up with for the night pulls out his cigarettes. He slides one free with his teeth, and offers the pack to Holden. 

Holden shakes his head. “No, thanks.”

The officer cradles his hand over the end of the cigarette as he lights up. The smell of nicotine makes Holden think of Bill, and he looks away from the cloud of smoke drifting from the man’s lips. 

“It’s Holden, right?” 

He glances back over to see the man gazing back at him with cool, hazel eyes. He has sandy blond hair and a chiseled jawline, a Robert Redford look about him. 

“Yeah.” Holden says. 

“Elliot.” The officer says, offering his hand. 

Holden shakes his hand, and shifts his gaze back to the bridge. 

“Sorry.” Elliot says, “I just transferred to this precinct, and I’m trying to learn everyone’s names.”

“Well, good luck. It’s one of the largest task forces ever assembled.”

“Ah, well. I guess I only need to remember the important ones.”

Holden flicks his gaze back to Elliot, but the officer is looking at the bridge with smoke seeping from his nostrils. Most of the conversations he has with his surveillance partners are perfunctory and work-related. He prefers being in a car with Jim, who he already knows and doesn’t have to try to make awkward small-talk with. Usually the officers don’t try to get to know him, and he isn’t interested in them. Elliot has his interest. 

Elliot scoffs, feeling Holden’s curious gaze on him. He drags his cigarette from his mouth, and tilts his head back against the headrest. 

“All right, I can’t lie. I already knew who you were.”

“Well, I am FBI.”

“Yeah, and-” Elliot says, holding up a finger, “I just transferred here from Adairsville.”

“Ah, the Devier case.”

“Yeah. A buddy of mine worked the case - Tim Brassel. Goes by Brass.”

Holden nods, slowly, his mouth pursing into a thin line. “I see.”

“He told me all about that interview. Kinda made you sound like a god.”

“A god. Really?” Holden asks, snorting a laugh. “Did Brass also tell you that he created kind of a big scandal for me in the  _ Atlanta Constitution _ ?” 

Elliot chuckles and nods, “You know, he’s a good kid, but he’s not the brightest. Honestly, I think he was just jealous.”

“Jealous of what?”

Elliot shrugs, and leans forward to roll down the window so he can ash his cigarette.

The question remains unanswered, and Holden feels his stomach clench. He’s tried hard not to remember all the details of that night - it had been the beginning of the end for him and Bill - but as drunk as he was, he can still see it all in vivid detail. The moonlight, Bill’s arm steady beneath his hand, his eyes conflicted yet resigned when Holden whispered,  _ I want you. Just you.  _ He can’t help but wonder now who else had seen his inebriated swaying and crooning. 

Eager to move past the topic of that evening, Holden says, “So, you transferred into this mess willingly, huh?”

“Yep. I was already planning to, but this city really needs bodies on this case. I figured, why not me?”

“Well, this is how we’re going to catch him.” Holden says, nudging his chin toward the bridge. “You came at just the right time.”

“You’re pretty confident.”

“I have to be. None of the city officials have listened to my strategies until now.”

“Why not?”

“I guess that they feel my ideas are somewhat … unorthodox.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to get the sense that a lot of things about you are unorthodox.”

Holden meets Elliot’s gaze again, and he’s staring back with a faint smile curling his lips. A twinge of intuition niggles at the back of Holden’s mind, the kind of piqued interest he’d felt seeing Bill across the room at Richie’s for the first time. Suddenly, he wants to ask Elliot what else Brassel told him, even if it was just conjecture. 

Instead, he shoves it down and tells himself to focus on the bridge. This is the deep South. He could just be imagining things, but either way he might be setting himself up for some real trouble by pursuing that inkling. 

They don’t see anything on the bridge for the rest of the night. 

When they get back to the task force headquarters, Elliot approaches Holden at his desk where he’s gathering his things up to leave for the night. 

“I was thinking of getting a drink before heading home.” He says. 

“It’s pretty late.”

“Exactly.” 

Holden coolly regards Elliot’s hopeful gaze and the hint of dimples in his faint smile before nodding. 

“I’m staying over at the Omni. They have a really nice hotel bar.”

“Sounds good.” Elliot says, his smile widening. 

“Meet me over there?”

“Yeah.” 

Holden watches as Elliot heads for the front doors of the office with anticipation and nerves clashing in his belly. He takes one last look at Bill’s vacant desk before throwing caution to the wind and following Elliot to the Omni.


	6. wrong directions

**May, 1980**

**Fredericksburg, Virginia**

Bill knows they’re in serious trouble when Nancy stops pleading with him to take time off and come home, and begins avoiding him when he is there on the weekends instead. If she isn’t leaving the house on some undetermined shopping trip, she’s hiding in the bedroom with the door firmly shut and the blankets over her head. Every time he comes home, the house is in disarray. At first, he attempted to question her on the sudden lack of proper housekeeping, even offering his help one weekend, but she doesn’t want to hear it. 

It’s a psychological problem he should be able to solve, he thinks. He’s a scientist. He’s studied the intricacies of the human mind for years; but just like his mother, who had been a part of the puzzle that led him down the road of behavioral questioning years ago, he can’t understand or reach inside the locked room of his wife’s mind. 

Three weeks into the bridge surveillance, he comes home late on Thursday evening to find Brian sitting on the living room carpet in front of the TV with a late night talk show host spitting political wise-cracks and half-baked puns that draw dull, audience chuckles. He has his train set out in front of him, but he’s barely playing with the linked cars. 

“Hey, bud.” Bill says, frowning as he eases the door shut behind him. “Where’s Mom?”

“Sleeping.”

Bill nods, stiffly. “All right. Did you brush your teeth?”

Brian shakes his head. 

“Well, what are you waiting for? It’s past your bedtime, don’t you think?”

Brian makes a face, but gets up from the carpet and scampers down the hall to the bathroom. Bill hears him scrubbing his teeth while he wanders into the kitchen to scan the dirty dishes in the sink and the unsorted mail lying in a heap on the island. 

Standing over the unkempt scene, Bill feels his stomach turn and his chest clench. He can’t help but think it’s all his fault even as instinctive anger flares in his chest, so hot it’s almost numb. 

He puts most of the soiled plates and silverware in the dishwasher before going down the hall to check on Brian. 

In his bedroom, Brian is driving two toy cars across the carpet and making them crash into each other. It’s a silent collision, no sound effects. 

“All right, kiddo, time for bed.” Bill says, rapping his knuckles on the doorframe. 

Brian doesn’t look up or respond. 

Bill gives him a generous five seconds of silence before tamping down his nerves and firming his tone, “Brian.”

Silently, Brian aggressively drives the cars into one another in a head-on crash. His focus doesn’t break even as Bill strides across the room, frustration sizzling through his veins. 

“Hey, what did I say?” Bill demands, crouching down next to him. 

Brian looks up from the cars, a scowl forming on his little brow. If he’d been one for words, he would have been shouting ‘no’ in Bill’s face, but his stubborn glare is speaking it loud enough. 

Bill’s patience wobbles on the frayed tightrope of his nerves. He’d worked surveillance the night before, caught maybe four hours of sleep, and went back to the headquarters to work for a few more hours before jumping on the flight home. He’d expected to go straight to bed upon his arrival, but instead, he’s cleaning up dishes and arguing with Brian about bedtime when the kid should have been asleep two hours ago. The mounting frustration in his chest is about to explode. 

“Listen to me,” He says, struggling to keep an even tone, “You have to the count of three to get in that bed.”

Brian’s defiantly jutting chin softens into a faint quiver, but his eyes retain their stubborn glaze. 

“One…”

Brian doesn’t move. He’s blinking like a deer caught in the lights. 

“Two…”

A weighted pause, both of them testing the other’s resilience. 

“Three.” 

Brian is bolted to the floor, his eyes darkening. 

Bill’s simmering frustration boils over, self-control slipping below the churning surface tension of burnt-out nerves and far too little sleep. 

It happens in a few scarce seconds, his limbs moving ahead of his brain, instinct striking like a match catching flame. Grabbing Brian by the upper arm, he lurches to his feet, and nearly picks Brian’s body off the ground with the forceful momentum. His other hand is halfway up from his side before Brian flinches, his chin twisting away and his eyes slamming shut in fearful anticipation. The realization of what his delirious, angry mind is telling him to do strikes him like a bucket of ice water. 

Bill comes to an abrupt halt. His hand curls into a trembling a fist. 

Brian whimpers softly, and struggles against Bill’s grip on his arm. 

Sinking to his knees in front of Brian, Bill rubs a hand over his face, shoving down rising guilt and overwhelmed, turbulent emotion. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, gentling his hand against Brian’s arm. He creeps his eyes open to glimpse Brian’s shocked, tremulous expression. “Please, help Dad out, and get in bed.”

Brian blinks, and swallows hard. His lower lip is trembling, big, dark eyes glistening. He stands still for a moment before turning and fleeing to the bed. Diving onto the mattress, he yanks the covers over him, and curls down with his head tucked at the bottom corner of his pillow. 

Bill climbs to his feet, and stares at the shivering lump beneath the sheets. The dull roar of crumbling emotion rises in the back of his mind, and his throat knots unbearably. He tries to think of something to say, but he knows exactly how Brian feels. An eight-year old can’t understand the nuances of adult behavior. All they understand is action and consequence. In a few years, the only action Brian is going to remember from this night is his father very nearly hitting him. 

Bill strides out of the room without speaking, and pulls the door shut behind him. In the darkness of the hall, he leans against the wall and scrubs a hand over his face in a failed attempt to smother the guilt crawling up his chest.

When the usual pep talk he gives himself to pull it together doesn’t work, he goes to the kitchen to retrieve the bottle of good whiskey he has stashed in the cupboard behind the sacks of flour and baking soda. Finding a clean glass, he carries the bottle to the living room, and pours himself a generous three fingers. 

An hour later, he’s had two or three, and the tattered ruin of heart aching in his chest is effectively numbed. Exhausted, he reluctantly shuffles down the hall to his and Nancy’s bedroom. When he slips inside, Nancy is lying perfectly still under the duvet, but he can tell by her breathing that she isn’t entirely asleep. 

He undresses and crawls into bed beside her. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he studies the back of her head, the slow rise of his shoulders. He wants to grab her by the arm and demand what the hell is wrong with her that she would leave their son to his own devices this late at night; but he knows he won’t get a good answer - at least not the ones he’s looking for - and the effort would be futile. 

“Nance-” 

She draws in a roused breath, and shifts onto her back. “Hmm?”

“I- …” He begins, his voice low and raspy. He clears his throat, and pushes up onto his elbow. “I’m really trying here. You get that, right?”

Her gaze is fixed on the ceiling. “Yes. You’re doing what you think is best.”

Bill sighs, and lowers his head. They’ve been having a version of this conversation for weeks now, both of them talking but neither of them really hearing the other side of it. 

“These past few weeks have been tough.” He says, “I’m doing everything I can to keep it all together - here and in Atlanta.”

“That’s the problem, Bill. Which one of those is more important to you?”

“You want me to quit my job? Is that what will make you happy?”

She rolls back over, tugging the sheets defiantly around her shoulders. “What would make me happy, Bill? The truth - for once.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

She sighs heavily, as if having to explain is too arduous to bear. For a moment, he thinks she simply won’t answer - and that it probably would have been easier for them to go on pretending there isn’t an irreparable gap between them - but finally, she says, “Is there someone else? Or has there been … in the past?”

Bill’s stomach sinks. A dull roar grows in his mind, the death knell of their marriage. He’s been hearing its echoes for weeks now. 

“Why are you asking that?” He whispers. 

“I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking.” She says, her voice trembling slightly. “Thinking back through the last few weeks - the years. I’m starting to wonder.”

He’s quiet, too bewildered by the sudden threat of honesty to conjure a proper rebuttal. He’s sick of lying to her, but now isn’t the time. Not with their son’s future on the line. He needs both his parents. 

“Remember last winter?” She says, “That was the last time you made love to me.” 

Bill lowers his head. Nausea churns in his belly as he recalls that night. The following week, he’d gone to Altoona with Holden and committed to what he had always wanted. Bridge burned, fate sealed. 

“I told you I didn’t want to know.” She whispers, her voice thickening with tears. “Well, I changed my mind, Bill. I want to know.”

Clutching her by the shoulder, he rolls her over onto her back, and cradles her tear-stained cheek in his palm. Despite the shadows, he can make out her pinched face staring up at him, eyes overflowing. 

“Don’t talk like that, honey. I love you. You know I do.” 

He whispers it desperately like the last words of a condemned man about to be hanged. A declaration. Not a lie, but not a whole truth either. 

Clutching her cheek, he bends down to press a hasty kiss to her mouth. She tastes like toothpaste and Listerine, he tastes like whiskey; they clash on their tongues, a bad cocktail, not a hint of lust. 

When they break apart, she’s pushing his hand from her cheek. 

“Fine, if that’s how you want it to be.” She says, “But let’s not pretend as if we still want each other like that.”

“Nancy-”

She puts her back to him, and pulls the sheets over her head until all he can see is her disheveled, permed curls. 

With a weary sigh, he sinks back against the pillow. A headache is beginning to grip at his temples and the base of his skull, the product of too many stressful hours staring at a bridge and not enough sleep; but nothing hurts more than his heart, a pressure so intense that he wonders if the vital organ is being physically torn asunder inside of him. 

He presses his eyes shut to try to sleep, but all he can think of is Holden; naive, lovelorn Holden, trembling in the muted, yellow light of his apartment, passionate and vicious, pleading and cruel in the same turns. _ Resigned to your victimhood. _ Almost a year later, his words still cut across Bill’s mind like the lash of a whip. He’s never felt more resigned to and trapped by his choices than he does right now. 

***

On Monday, Bill returns to Atlanta with a sense of defeat rattling against his ribs. The night shift watching the bridge is sticky, hot and uncomfortable, but the sweltering layer of tension over top the humidity nearly renders the sweat rolling down his temples negligible. 

Holden sits in the passenger’s seat of the car with his collar undone and his tie loosened. In the low moonlight, his temples glisten with sweat and his cheeks hold a ruddy glow. His mouth is ripe pink and hushed tonight, his mind clearly elsewhere. 

Bill takes a drag of his cigarette, and shifts back in his seat to get a better but discreet view of Holden’s profile. 

He’s thinking about that night in Holden’s apartment when they’d agreed to end things. Holden’s fragility, his longing for comfort. And his own panic, the chilled fear that he might care too much, that he might be too invested, that he might be falling - slowly crashing down into his feelings for Holden; but now that his marriage, a veil of normalcy that he’d clung to for his identity, is in shambles, he can’t bring up that same fight or flight response. He can only despise himself for letting go of something good. 

“What?” Holden murmurs. 

Bill’s chest seizes, and he quickly averts his gaze back to the bridge. 

Holden turns to look at him curiously. 

“Nothing.” Bill says. 

Holden silently assesses him for a long moment before directing his eyes straight ahead again. He scoffs quietly. 

“This is weird.” 

“Weird?” Bill echoes. 

“This used to be normal.” Holden says, motioning to their seating arrangement in the car. “But I’ve gotten accustomed to being in this car with someone else.”

Bill clenches his jaw. “Holden, you know-”

“I’m not asking for an apology.”

“But I think I owe you one. I haven’t been here. I haven’t been as focused as I should be.”

“I understand now. You have the situation with Brian to deal with. I just- …” Holden says, uttering a low sigh. His voice dwindles to a whisper, “I wish you had told me sooner.”

Bill inhales nicotine against the knot forming in the back of his throat. 

“Yeah, me too.” He mutters. 

“So, maybe in the future we shouldn’t keep things from each other.” 

Bill looks up at Holden to see his head tilted back against the headrest, his mouth tugging with a faint smile. 

“Okay.” Bill says. 

They return to the hotel in the early hours of the morning just as the first rays of sunrise are painting the sky pink and gold. It was another empty night for the investigation, but Bill feels relieved that they’d put their cards on the table with just a few words. He hadn’t expected a lengthy discussion, embraces, or tears - and he wouldn’t have wanted it. It’s enough to know that Holden doesn’t entirely resent him for the way he’d chosen to handle Brian’s situation. 

Usually by the time he crawls into bed, his eyes slip shut the moment his head hits the pillow, but as he pulls the sheets over his head in an attempt to sleep, his mind is still racing. Sluggish warmth crawls through his limbs as he thinks of Holden’s eyes and mouth, his perspiring neck exposed above his undone collar. He can still remember the taste of those lips, the feeling of Holden’s naked body crushed under his own and wrapped up in his arms. Those fingertips had the ability to let loose a shackled weight that had rested on Bill’s soul for decades with just the slightest touch. 

Suddenly, he realizes that he’s missed it terribly - that he’s missed Holden. Not just the sex, but the open honesty that Holden had coaxed out of him in the afterglow each and every time, precise like draining infection from a wound. Even if he’d fought it tooth and nail, those moments where he felt safe to be vulnerable had offered him an intimacy he’s never had with anyone else - not even Nancy. And tonight, his soul feels heavier than ever before.

Bill sits up and tosses the sheets back. His head aches in a sleep-deprived response, but he ignores the exhaustion in his limbs as he climbs into his pants and tosses his shirt on with the buttons undone. 

Holden had suggested they not keep secrets from one another. And the truth is that Bill still wants him, still needs him - needs him now more than anything. 

Determination seething in his veins, Bill hastily navigates the deserted hotel corridors until he gets to Holden’s room. Light still seeps from below the door, indicating that he’s yet to go to bed. 

Bill raises his fist to knock, hesitates, and turns in a tight circle, before whirling back around to rap his knuckles against the door. Anxiety and anticipation clash in his belly while he waits. He glances up and down the hall to assure there’s no witnesses. Each door is sealed and motionless, but the silence only makes his nerves soar. 

Finally, he hears the lock turn, and the door cracks open. 

Holden blocks the narrow opening with his body. It appears as if he’d dressed hastily; he’s bare-chested, and the drawstring waistband of his pajama trousers is twisted and the knotted string is tucked inside. His cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are glazed with the fearful panic of a kid being caught doing something naughty red-handed. 

“Bill.” He says, “What’s going on?”

Bill’s confidence flags as he analyzes Holden’s guarded stance. “I, uh …”

“Is it about the case?”

“No, um- … It’s about … Can we talk inside?”

Holden swallows hard, instinctively looking away. There’s an indistinct sound, what could be a male voice, from within the room, and he shoots a harried glance over his shoulder. 

Realization hits Bill like a cold wave, and he feels his heart tumble down into his stomach. He takes an unsteady step backwards as Holden slips out of the room and pulls the door firmly shut behind him. 

“Is someone in there?” Bill asks. 

Holden gazes at him defiantly. “It’s really early. Why are you here?”

“Who?” Bill presses, too overwhelmed by sudden, unbidden jealousy to focus on his initial reason for coming here.

“Nobody.” Holden angles for a casual tone but ends up with a defensive retort. 

“Damnit, Holden.” Bill says, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “What the fuck are you thinking?”

Holden glances away and crosses his arms over his chest. His cheeks are flushed an incriminating pink. 

“Don’t tell me it’s someone involved in this case.”

Holden’s staunch refusal to look at him wavers, and the single, hesitant glance of demure blue eyes from beneath fluttering eyelashes finalizes the conclusion.

“Jesus Christ.” Bill says, putting up dismayed hands. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that could be? For you, for your career, for the reputation of the Bureau? If someone found out-”

“I really don’t think you’re in a position to lecture me.” Holden says, sharply. “And need I remind you that what I do with my personal life isn’t any of your business anymore?”

“No, but you’re the one who said we shouldn’t keep things from each other.”

“Things pertaining to work.”

“All right. You wanna split hairs - fine. But I’m just trying to warn you-”

“Bill, we aren’t sleeping together anymore.” Holden says, exasperated, his eyes turning icy with glazed-over hurt. “So why do you even care?”

Bill lowers his head, fighting back a wave of anger that’s fueled more by humiliation than anything else. He’d come here with his heart in his hand, ready to put himself on his knees to have Holden back again, an impulse whose stupidity is rapidly becoming apparent. Nevermind that Holden’s reckless behavior could damage their reputation; it hurts to realize that Holden has detached himself from what they shared and moved on in the space of eight months.

“My God, Bill.” Holden says, quietly, his tone dropping with bewildered intuition. 

Bill slowly looks up from the carpet, feeling like a dehydrated plant withering beneath the harsh rays of the sun in Holden’s eyes. 

“Did you think-”

“I don’t know what I thought.” Bill says, throwing up defeated hands. “Clearly, I was wrong. I’ll let you get back to your night.”

He swivels to march back down the hall to his room, and Holden doesn’t stop him. The sound of the door shutting behind him echoes when Bill reaches the end of the hall, but by the time Bill turns to look over his shoulder, the corridor is vacant again. 

Returning to his room, Bill crawls beneath the sheets, his body as lonely and hollow as it had been when he left only now it’s pinned down by the weight of a growing shame. For a moment, he’d let himself get carried away with the thought that Holden could save him from this feeling of despair he’s been drowning in for weeks. He’d foolishly allowed himself hope, a feeling he’d once taught himself to reject outright. He’s going to have to relearn it - there’s no other option.

_ You’re not in love, you idiot.  _ He thinks, draping his arm over his eyes to block out the dawning sunlight.  _ Never was, never will be.  _

The next morning, he gets a shower and shaves in front of the bathroom mirror with his gaze fixed dourly on his reflection, reminding himself again that Holden moving on from their relationship shouldn’t matter all that much to him outside of the fact that they’re here in Atlanta to work. If Holden wants to mess around behind the investigation’s back, Bill’s only concern should be making certain their superiors don’t find out about the indiscretion. That’s the job Gunn commissioned him to do when they came down here - act as Holden’s blinders. 

As he walks to the elevators, he catches a glimpse down the hall where Holden’s room is located. He’s standing just outside the door with a sandy-haired man in a police officer’s uniform. They’re both laughing and blushing. 

Bill’s chest burns as he stares down the hallway. His little pep talk in the bathroom mirror fades out as blatant jealousy sharpens like needles against his ribcage. Tearing his gaze away from the way the man’s hand familiarly touches Holden’s elbow, he shuffles back against the wall, and reaches in his pocket for his cigarettes. 

After a minute, the blond-haired officer swaggers around the corner toward the elevator. He doesn’t notice Bill hovering, and gets on the elevator with a faint smile lingering on his mouth. 

Holden exits the corridor shortly behind him. 

“Morning.” Bill says. 

Holden startles, and whirls around to see Bill pushing away from the wall and sliding a cigarette to the corner of his mouth. 

“Good morning.” He says, his fingers smoothing nervously down his tie. 

“That your new beau?”

Holden’s eyes pinch with an irritated glare. “His name is Elliot.” 

“Mm.” 

Bill lights his cigarette as he walks past Holden on the way to the elevator. He wants to say that Elliot sounds like the name of a prep school, hedge-fund kid. A tightass. Stuck-up. A little too much like Holden, bad math. Instead, he holds the elevator door for Holden to get in with him. 

The elevator hums beneath them through the first three floors before Holden clears his throat. 

“Bill, I’d really like for us to start over. I don’t think you like this friction anymore than I do.”

“I’m not upset that you’re sleeping with someone else.” Bill says, exhaling smoke and casting Holden a sideways glance. “I was dead tired last night - not thinking straight. All I’m concerned about is this little fling you’re having finding its way back to Chief Redding or, God forbid, Ted.”

Holden nods, slowly. “Okay, but-”

The elevator pings and jolts to a stop. The doors slide open to the bustling lobby of the Omni. 

“Just be careful, all right?” Bill says. 

Holden nods, demurely. 

When they get to the ATKID headquarters, there’s already too much to do, and not any time to think about personal grievances. Bill focuses all his energy on the case and the kids. 

Three days later, they catch Wayne B. Williams driving across the Cobb Parkway Bridge. Bill goes home for Memorial Day weekend, desperate to spend some time with Nancy and Brian and renew his devotion to keeping his family intact. That night he’d gone to Holden’s room had been a delirious misstep in the wrong direction, a moment of heartbroken delusion. If he believes it strongly enough, he can fix his family; he can fix him and Nancy.

When Holden calls him midday Saturday about the evidence that they’d found on Williams, he doesn’t hesitate to get back on a plane to Atlanta despite Nancy’s protests.  _ This is it. We’ve got him.  _ He tells her. He hadn’t thought it would be the last weekend he would spend at home with his wife and son before the truth tore them apart. 

***

**June, 1980**

**Fredericksburg, Virginia**

_ Atlanta’s changed everything.  _

Holden hears the echo of Ted’s voice in his head as he watches the safety commissioner and the DA’s press conference on the television. Williams will only be tried for two of the murders. The rest get swept under the rug. Not exactly the victory lap Bill had encouraged him to take. 

He jabs the power button on the TV, plunging the room into silence. Moisture stings beneath the press of his eyelids, and a shaky inhale rasps against the back of his throat. 

He’d put his everything into Atlanta and those murdered children. Perhaps too much. He’d let it consume him, fill up every inch of available space inside his chest; and now that real estate is left void and hollow, no more than a sounding board for his own thoughts of failure. 

Going back into the kitchen, Holden pulls the slip of paper out of his pocket that Elliot had scribbled his phone number on. His hand hovers over the telephone. 

_ I want to see you again.  _ Elliot had murmured as he pressed the paper into Holden’s palm in the middle of the Chrysler building. Nobody had noticed the brief closeness of their bodies or the exchanged glances. The short, feverish affair had slipped in beneath the radar of the investigation, yet another straining effort on his part that had amounted to almost nothing. 

Holden had simply nodded and put the paper in his pocket. He hadn’t thought about what would happen once the case was over when he slept with Elliot that first night; it had been pure volition, action, desire. A hurt heart and an untouched body begging to be held. Elliot had filled a space. 

Holden curls his fingers around the receiver as his thumb smooths across the numbers. He wants to tell someone how he feels right now - that Atlanta hadn’t been the victory everyone thinks it is, and kids paid for it with their lives. That he can’t go back to selfishly believing their work bestows some higher power on investigations that can change everything instantly. But more than that, that he’s unhappy and terribly lonely. Is that the kind of conversation for two people who had a fling that lasted less than a month? No, and he’d rather be calling someone else. 

Before Holden can further consider dialing Elliot’s number, the phone rings against his palm. He startles out of his reverie, and picks the phone up in the middle of the first ring on instinct. 

“Hello?”

There’s a brief pause before Bill draws in a shaky breath. “Hey.”

Holden drops the piece of paper on the counter, and clutches the phone to his ear with both hands. 

“Bill, what’s wrong?”

He has a sense before Bill even says it, intuition brushing across the back of his mind like a feather before the words hit the pit of his stomach with the weight of a rock. 

“Nancy left me.”

Holden closes his eyes. His heart is thundering, dread, anticipation, relief, and horror all climbing into the fibers of his body at once. 

“Where are you?” He whispers. 

“The house. It’s empty. She took everything.”

Holden turns to lean back against the wall. He scans the empty kitchen and the dimly lit living room beyond. Everything looks like two dimensional fixtures, his life unspooled around him, balancing on the thread of this moment. He can only imagine how Bill feels. 

“Christ.” He says, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “Do you want … What do you want- from me?”

Bill sighs heavily into the phone. “Nothing. I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry, I just-”

“Had to tell someone?”

“Yeah.”

Holden nods. His chest brews with growing heat, reckless impulse. He’s been fighting it off for so long that he should be an expert by now, but this is what Bill does to him. He’s like a match, and Bill is friction, then flame. 

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He says, quietly. 

Bill is quiet for a solid ten seconds before muttering, “Thank you.”

The line disconnects, and Holden is left standing with the telephone in his hand and the rest of the night unfolding from his fingertips. 

He’s in the car and driving towards Bill’s house before he can second-guess himself. As he cruises down the quiet streets below a setting sun, his blood slows and the realization sinks in. Bill could be his for the taking if he played tonight right. Nancy is out of the way. Bill is raw and open, wrecked. He could be the balm to the wound. Fuck tomorrow. Fuck the future. Only tonight matters - but does it? The sun is going to come back up eventually.

When Holden arrives at the Tench home, all the lights in the house are on. They glow from every window like beacons still maintaining the image of an occupied family home, but when he opens the front door, that illusion is quickly shattered. 

The house is bare except for the green couch. It looks bigger than before with its stripped down walls staring back at him with little emotion. It’s like they can’t remember their purpose of containing a loving husband and wife, and they’re just walls now. Just paint and drywall. 

Drawing in a shaky breath, Holden wanders further into the house. 

“Bill?” 

Bill’s voice drifts from down the hall. “Back here.” 

Holden follows the sound of it until he’s standing in the doorway of the master bedroom. Nancy had left behind the bedframe and the mattress, but no sheets. Bill is sitting on the edge with his elbows braced against his knees. He’s smoking what’s left of a cigarette, and the ashtray on the nightstand holds the stubs of two others. 

Bill looks up slowly, his face barely screened by smoke. His eyes are heavy yet dry. His mouth trembles when he takes a drag. 

“Hey.” He whispers. 

“Hi.” 

Bill straightens, and tilts his head back to blow smoke at the ceiling. His chest shudders with the exhale, and his physically imposing shoulders look as if they could cave at any moment, more fragile than Holden could have imagined. 

Shuffling across the room, Holden pauses just a foot from the bed, and tries to conjure something to say.

“Thanks for coming.” Bill says, dropping his cigarette to his lap. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

Holden nods, stiffly. “Have you tried calling her family, friends?”

“No. I don’t think she wants that right now.”

Holden lets the response sink in. He was the first person Bill called - the only person. 

He sits down on the edge of the bare mattress beside Bill, and folds his hands in his lap. Last year, he would have been fighting his way into Bill’s arms and holding him close. He would have offered his body for whatever desperate needs Bill could throw at him. Now, he isn’t sure how to comfort a man he’s loved for years. 

“Fuck,” Bill mutters, rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know what this means for Brian.”

“Maybe she’s just upset right now. She could come back.”

“Doubtful.” Bill says, scoffing harshly, “It’s over. I knew it was for awhile, I just- … I didn’t want to believe it until now-”

His voice crumbles. Dropping his forehead to his hand, he bows forward as if crushed by the weight of the world. Holden hears him draw in a shuddering breath just before everything goes silent; the only sign that the emotion is coming in like a tide is the shiver in Bill’s hunched shoulders. 

Shocked by the open display of vulnerability, Holden is paralyzed for a long moment until the impulse to offer comfort forces him into motion. Carefully, he reaches over to touch Bill’s lower back. He doesn’t press too hard, afraid Bill might wrench away from the offered embrace to cling to his pride. But it doesn’t happen. Holden’s hand keeps moving up his trembling spine, across the firm expanse of his back.

As the tentative caress curls around his shoulder, Bill leans into Holden, and presses his face to his chest. A quiet sob emerges from the recesses of his throat, but he quickly smothers it in the fabric of Holden’s shirt. 

Wrapping his arm tightly around Bill’s shoulders, Holden retrieves the forgotten cigarette from Bill’s fingers and discards it into the ashtray.

Bill lets it all happen, even curling down tighter against Holden’s chest as Holden gently cradles the back of his head. His arms wrap around Holden’s waist, creeping slowly at first and then hanging on fiercely as the emotion pummels its way free. 

Holden’s gaze is fixed on the bland color of the wall paint, but his mind tunnels past the stripped fixtures of this house, beyond to what it means. Nancy gone. Bill breaking down in his arms. It’s hard to reconcile with the life he’d come to accept for the past eight months, but it’s real - too real. He isn’t prepared to grapple with the consequences.

After a few minutes, Bill gradually lifts his face from Holden’s chest. His breath stutters hotly against Holden’s neck as he keeps his arms fixed securely around his waist. 

Holden tries to pull back to see his face, but Bill clutches him by the cheek. His mouth presses against Holden’s throat, just below his earlobe, a wet stamp of hunger and a desperate need to be touched, comforted, loved. 

Holden is frozen in place while the messy kiss moves along his jawline, Bill’s stubble creating burning friction against his cheek. A whimper grows in the back of his throat, but it stays stuck there, swollen and aching. He presses his eyes shut, trying to process, trying to think, to reason. By the time he locates his willpower, Bill’s mouth is against his own, blustering with panicked breaths, damp with open-mouthed hunger, sloppy with the push of his tongue. 

Bill’s fingers curl around his nape, dragging him closer. Their teeth clash momentarily as Holden offers faint resistance, but he’s quickly melting again, his mouth open and pliant to the tumultuous kisses raining down, melding into one another, stretching into long, desperate suckles across his stinging lower lip. 

A groan rumbles from the back of Bill’s throat as he leans in, nudging Holden back toward the mattress. 

The urgent move jostles awake Holden’s dazed inhibitions. He tears his mouth away from Bill’s with a breathless gasp, and jerks his head to the side so that his tingling, bitten lips are out of reach. 

“Bill, stop.”

Bill leans his forehead against Holden’s temple, breathing in heavy, broken gasps that verge on fresh tears. 

“You’re not thinking.” Holden whispers, closing his eyes against the pain that honesty incites in his chest. 

“No, I want you.” Bill replies, his voice low and shuddering. “I want you so fucking much-”

Holden wrenches out of his embrace, and staggers to his feet. His knees are shaking, threatening to collapse out from under him. 

“That’s exactly the problem.” He says, jabbing a wild hand at the pathetic scene unraveling in front of him. 

Bill's jaw is silently rigid, as if chiseled from stone, but his eyes are glassy and red-rimmed, sad and desperate. 

“You just want me.” Holden whispers, the anger in his voice already failing. “In bed. When you’re hurting and lonely.”

Bill looks away, pressing his thumb and forefinger to his tear ducts. He shakes his head quietly, drawing in a breath that makes his chest shudder. 

“You have no idea how much I want to give into you right now.” Holden says, “But I can’t - not without giving away the last of my self-respect. Not without asking you what happens tomorrow, or the day after when you’ve made yourself push past what you’re feeling right now - because that’s what’s going to happen, right? It’s what you do. You keep soldiering on until you you can’t feel a fucking thing.”

Bill’s gaze rises again, meeting Holden’s with new hesitation. 

“You told me you’re not a faggot. Do you still think that?” 

Bill’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t answer. 

“See?” Holden says, lifting his hands helplessly. “It’s just a momentary thing - a release to get you through. I can’t give you a child and a home, the white picket fence, the exchange of rings, what the world expects of us, what you  _ think  _ you want. I love you - I  _ have  _ for a long time - but I can’t make you love me.”

Bill’s expression shifts minutely, the smallest flinch. Holden doesn’t know whether it represents how much he cares or if he’s deflecting again. He’s too overwrought to chase after the differences. 

He quickly rubs a hand beneath his eyelid to quell a tear before he draws in a deep breath and evens his tone. 

“Are you going to be okay here by yourself?”

Bill nods, and exhales a small, weak laugh. “Yeah, Holden. I’m perfectly fucking fine. Go home.”

Holden turns to walk out of the house, but stops at the doorway of the bedroom. His chest is burning, rage and love. 

“Don’t hate me for this. It isn’t fair.”

“I don’t hate you.” Bill says, sighing heavily as he grabs the pack of cigarettes from the nightstand and pulls one free. “It’s late. Go home and get some rest.”

Holden nods. He can’t speak again with the tears climbing up to cluster at the back of his throat. He walks out of the house with the world blurring in front of him. When he gets into his car and pulls away, he does his best to stop the tears from falling, but the further away he drives, the more it feels like he’s leaving a part of himself behind in the shell of the Tench home. 


	7. changing times

It takes Bill two days to get a hold of Nancy. He calls everyone he can think of that might know where she’s gone, but avoids talking to her parents. If she hasn’t told them about her plans, it would only scare them. If she has, that conversation might be more humiliating than he can bear. 

Eventually, she calls him back after he contacts the reality office. The telephone rings late on Tuesday evening as he’s eating take-out in the kitchen and nursing a beer. 

“Nancy?” He asks without prelude. 

“Yes, it’s me.” She says, her voice tremulous yet guarded. 

“Christ, where are you? Do you know how worried I’ve been?”

“I’m sorry. I know I should have called sooner. I just- …”

Bill clutches the phone tightly to his ear, and braces the other hand against the wall. He focuses on the musty line where the laminate meets the wall. Though he wants to make his demands, he knows he has to let her work up her nerve and speak. She’s done a ballsy thing, something he hadn’t thought her capable of until now. 

“We’re fine.” She says, at last. “I wouldn’t take Brian somewhere unsafe. You know that.”

“But, you-” He begins, his tone rushed with anger. He presses his eyes shut, forcing himself to lower his voice. “You didn’t even leave a note about where you were going. You understand how that might make me worry, right?”

“Of course. But I couldn’t tell you - you would have stopped me, and I couldn’t let you do that. This needed to happen, Bill.”

“Like this? Taking my son away from me without explanation?”

“Please, don’t make this about you.”

“It is about me. And you. And Brian, too. Do you have any idea what this is going to look like on paper to the social worker, the CA’s office?” 

“We’re separating. That’s all they need to know.”

“That isn’t how this works, Nance.” Bill says, struggling to remind himself about keeping an even tone. 

“I had to do this. For us. Okay, can you try to understand that, Bill? Can you stop pretending for a second and realize how unhappy we were?”

Bill presses his eyes shut, and rubs a hand over his mouth and jaw. All at once he wants to smash the telephone into the wall or simply collapse to the floor. He wants to scream:  _ You’ve taken away my reasons, my will, my hope. You’ve taken it all.  _

Instead, he draws in a shaky breath, and forces his fingers to relax around the receiver. 

“Can you just tell me where you are so we can talk about this in person?” 

There’s a long pause before she quietly clears her throat. “Yes. But you have to promise me-”

“Anything.”

“I want to talk honestly. No lies. The ugly, terrible truth, Bill.”

Bill chest twinges with dread, but he has to agree. There’s nowhere else to go from here. 

“Yes. The truth.” He says. 

“Okay. Get a pen. I’ll give you the address.”

“Address?”

“Yes, I found us a house.”

Bill leans harder into the wall, shaken. The thought that she’s been planning this for weeks strikes him, threatening to take out his knees. 

The address turns out to be in Alexandria. Nancy’s dream neighborhood. 

They agree to meet on Thursday evening so that they can discuss how they’ll present their situation to Dr. Moritz on Friday. After they hang up, Bill stares blankly at the scribbled address as his thoughts race. 

She’s starting over without him, but he can’t let her go without at least trying. Maybe there’s some things about himself that he can rectify so that he can fix them; one or two parts that aren’t entirely irredeemable. 

The next day, he gets to work early, and phones up to Ted’s office. The secretary leaves him on hold for two minutes before Ted picks up. 

“Bill, good morning.” 

“Good morning, sir. How are you?”

“Well. How about yourself?”

“Well, sir, I’m going to be extremely blunt.”

There’s a beat of silence across the line before Ted’s congenial tone shifts into concerned sobriety. “Blunt about what exactly?”

“I’d like to meet to discuss it with you today.” Bill says, “If you have time, that is.”

“Of course. I always have time to listen to the concerns of my subordinates. But what exactly is so pressing?”

“It, um …” Bill glances around the bleak furnishings of his basement office with a twinge of hesitation in his chest before pushing ahead, “It concerns my future with this department.” 

***

The house in Alexandria is modest but pristine. The mid-century modern style with the flat, jutting roof, the vertical, white siding, and the three floor-to-ceiling windows looking into the living area is a stark difference to their vacated home in Fredericksburg. The neighborhood is tree-lined and neatly tended to, driveways inhabited by posh coupes and quite a few less minivans. 

Nancy had called it “cultured.” Bill is wondering how she’s going to afford the place after the undoubted good-will of her parents expires. 

He parks in the driveway next to the station wagon, and climbs out to see Nancy opening the front door. She stands in the doorway with her arms crossed until he gets to the porch. 

They share a quiet gaze, sizing each other up. 

“Can I come in?” Bill asks, spreading his hands. 

She gives a clipped nod, and turns to go into the house.

As he eases the door shut behind them, he quickly scans the interior of the house. Some of the furnishings are recognizable, some of them are new. A pair of long, sheer curtains drape the trio of vertical windows, barely shading off sunlight that spills across brand-new, taupe carpeting. 

“Where’s Bri?”

“Out back playing.” Nancy says, turning around to meet his gaze with her arms crossed. “I thought we should get our discussion out of the way first while he’s distracted.”

“Of course.” Bill says, trying to sound amiable. 

“Let’s sit.” Nancy forces a thin smile to her face as she motions to the new couch. 

The cushions are rigid from hardly being used when Bill sits down. His first instinct is to pull out a cigarette to stave off the nerves, but everything looks so crisp and clean he can’t imagine Nancy would appreciate it too much. 

They sit in silence for a few moments before Bill clears his throat. “Nance-”

“Okay, wait-” She interrupts, holding up a hand. “Let’s just get one thing straight first.”

“Okay…”

“You’re not here to convince me or change my mind. We’re going to talk about Brian’s future, what’s best for him.”

Bill clenches his jaw against an instinctive flare of anger.  _ What’s best for Brian? What’s best for him is having both of his parents! Not being ripped from the familiarity of his home without warning!  _

“Right. I care about that as much as you do.” He says, instead. 

She nods. “Okay, good. Then we should just be completely honest, and say that we’re not going to drag this out. Don’t you agree?”

“Well, not exactly.”

Her brows pinch with an indignant frown. “What does that mean?”

“We have to talk about this, Nance.” Bill says, trying for a gentle tone. “You’re talking about breaking up our marriage after almost twenty years. You can’t just wash your hands of it and move on.”

“I’ve tried to talk about it.” She says, stiffly. “For years. You never listened to me.”

Bill averts his gaze from the incensed glow on her cheeks and the unraveled look in her eyes, shaking his head. 

“Do you really need me to tell you why I’ve been unhappy?” She demands, “Do you want me to list all of the reasons, Bill?”

“No, I understand. I haven’t been there. My work has been taking up too much of my attention - not just with Atlanta and this situation we’re in with Brian, but for a long time. I get that.”

“You get that? Now?” 

“Yes.”

“Great.” She scoffs, running frustrated fingertips across her temples. “You get it now!”

“I do. And I did before. Atlanta was out of my control, but things are going to be different from now on.”

She casts him a guarded gaze, her jaw working from side to side. 

He shifts closer to her, and extends a careful hand. She doesn’t flinch away when he touches her thigh, but her shoulders remain rigid and her hands knot together in her lap. 

“Look, I’ve spoken to Ted.” He says, quietly. “There’s an opportunity for me to transfer out of Behavioral Science into something more routine. No travel, no task forces-”

“What?” She whispers, her eyes widening. “You’re quitting?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes, but- … but that was-” She sputters, shaking her head. “That was  _ weeks _ ago, Bill. That was- … I didn’t expect you to actually …”

“Well, I’m willing to do it. For you, for Brian.”

She stares at him for a long moment, her mouth stuck halfway open. 

His chest thunders as he awaits her reply, his whole heart hanging on the thread of hope that she could see this act of sacrifice and change her mind - that she could see saving their family means everything to him, that he doesn’t have anything else without it. 

Her expression is frozen in disbelief as she rises and shuffles a few feet away. Her hand hovers over her chest while the other wraps tightly around her middle. 

“Bill, you love your work.” She says, finally, turning to cast him a bewildered gaze. “You can’t quit. It’s your life.”

“No, Nance, this is my life.” He says, stretching a hand between them. “You and me and Brian. I don’t care about a job more than that.”

She stands still, her eyes shimmering as he carefully approaches her. She lifts her quivering chin and draws in a slow breath. The flutter of her eyelids lets free a single tear down her cheek. 

He reaches up to catch it as it falls, smearing it with his thumb as his palms grasp her jawline. Drawing her closer, he presses a soft kiss to her forehead. 

“Please, listen to me.” He whispers, “Don’t do this. Don’t give up on us.”

Her breath shudders from her nostrils as she clamps her mouth shut over welling tears. Other than the tremble working through her, she’s immobile in his grasp, not protesting when he gingerly kisses his way down her temple and cheek. 

As he reaches her hair, he inhales the smell of her shampoo and perfume. Pressing his eyes shut, he imprints that scent onto his brain, recalling it up from old memory, lathering it over fresher impulses and wayward desires. He pulls her into his arms, and thinks only of her body pressed to his - not Holden’s, not anyone else’s. He tells himself that he could be happy here again if she would only let him, that he could try harder, that he could change his ways, that things could be different. 

But she goes cold in his embrace. 

Wrenching herself free, she takes a stumbled step backwards. Her mascara is running, and her mouth is trembling. 

“You can quit your job, but what can’t you quit?” She demands. 

“What are you talking about?” He asks, his voice choked with the sick knot forming all the way down the back of his throat and into his turning stomach. 

“You think I didn’t know?” She cries, jabbing a finger at him. “You think I didn’t notice every time you’ve ever touched me, but your mind was miles away - with someone else? You think I couldn’t feel how disconnected you were from me, how  _ disgusted  _ you were to be making love to me? I know, Bill. I know. A woman knows when her husband doesn’t want her!”

He draws in a shaky, and tries to work up a response; but his mind is racing, and his spine is flushing with cold chills of horror, and his stomach feels close to rejecting what little dinner he’d eaten. 

The abject terror lasts for a long moment right before a strange sense of relief explodes in his veins.  _ This is what the brutal truth feels like.  _

He lowers his head, and tries to think of a way to say it that won’t crush her. 

She sniffs quietly, rubbing her hand angrily across her tear-stained cheek. “You don’t have anything to say?”

“Nothing that will make this hurt you’re feeling go away.”

She nods, blinking against fresh tears. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I can’t explain it right now. But I did love you. I  _ do _ -”

“Bill, please. Don’t.” She says, turning away and pressing a hand over her eyes. 

Silence stretches out between them. Dust motes sail past the gauzy curtains and above her head, and somewhere beyond the windows, a pair of birds call back and forth. Everything about the house looks new and clean, but they’re standing in the ruins, the ashes. He wishes he could change that, change himself. Mostly, he wishes he could explain it to her in a way she would understand; but how could he when he doesn’t fully understand it himself?

“When we talk to Dr. Moritz tomorrow-” She says, drawing in a hiccuped breath, “-we’ll say that we’re separating. Do you agree?”

Bill nods, exhaling a defeated sigh. 

“I’m sure he won’t be happy, but …. This relationship is toxic. It isn’t good for Brian, or any of us.”

He doesn’t protest. 

She lifts her chin, and inhales a steadying breath. “If you want to see Brian you should probably go out there now.” 

“Okay.” 

She doesn’t look up from the carpet as he makes his way through the kitchen to the glass sliding door that leads to the back yard. 

Beneath the golden rays of late afternoon, Brian is sitting on the grass with two GI Joes that he’s barely playing with. His head is down, and his eyes are focused on the grass, unaware of the woes around him.

Bill draws in a shaky breath, trying to expel the clump of tears knotted in his chest. He has to be strong for his son even as the world is coming down. It’s his last bastion of fatherhood he feels capable of defending. 

***

**July 1980**

**Texarkana, Texas**

Bill tries to go on. He tries valiantly to focus all of his efforts on work, an endeavor which had once provided him an escape from the performances required of him at home; but his house is empty, and Holden is there in the BSU basement office with him, a constant reminder. Everything has the stain of his mistakes all over it. 

Though everyone of importance in the BSU knows about his and Nancy’s separation, he keeps the lawyer meetings and divorce correspondence as sequestered from their work environment as possible. It’s never directly mentioned even when he has to slip out early for an appointment or leave Holden with Gregg as his interview partner when he can’t be out of town for more than a day. To an outside observer, the equilibrium in the BSU offices might have appeared to be back to normal with only a few minor adjustments. 

In late July, Bill and Holden are in Texas interviewing multiple murderer and rapist Edward DeSanto. For the majority of the plane ride down, they’d talked details of the crimes and strategy. Background history on DeSanto is scarce. The killer has never consented to an interview before, but what they can find is an oft repeated story in the life of a murderer - a rough childhood fraught with abandonment and abuse. 

When they get to the facility in Texarkana, Bill locates the visitor parking, and shuts the engine off with a repressed sigh. 

“You good?” Holden asks, casting him a dubious gaze. 

“Yep.” 

Bill shoves the car door open and climbs out before Holden can press him further. 

He’d been distracted on their last outing, too worried about the last therapy meeting with Dr. Moritz to put all his energy into digesting the sordid details of a killer’s mind. Though Holden hadn’t questioned him too thoroughly about the lack of initiative, Bill had felt the undercurrent of concern and frustration on the plane ride home. He clutches a wavering determination in his chest to perform more satisfactorily this time. 

Their meeting with DeSanto is held in a section of the cafeteria with he and Holden sharing a bench on one side of the steel table while DeSanto occupies the other side. 

Holden gives his speech about the purposes of their interview and that the information won’t impact DeSanto’s parole efforts. 

“Does that all sound agreeable to you?” Holden asks. 

DeSanto nods, slanting a curious gaze between Bill and Holden. He’s a pudgy, middle-aged man with dark hair combed over a receding hairline. An unkempt mustache attempts to conceal a cleft palate, a detail which had helped the police identify him, and is, undoubtedly, a factor in low self-esteem.

“You’ve never given an interview before.” Holden says, “Do you mind me asking why you changed your mind?”

“I’ve been approached by the press, people like that who aren’t interested in the real story. Nobody like the FBI has ever asked to interview me before.” DeSanto says, “I’m surprised you’re interested in someone like me.”

“Someone like you?” Holden asks. 

“Yeah,” DeSanto shrugs, “I’m a nobody.”

“A nobody who killed eight people.” Bill says, “You’re exactly the type of person we’re interested in.”

DeSanto appears pleased by this observation. “What do you want to know?”

“Usually we like to start with family history.” Holden says, sliding his pen from his pocket, “Can you tell us a little about what your childhood was like?”

DeSanto purses his lips and averts his gaze to his lap. “I thought you were here to ask me about how I killed all those women.”

“We are. Childhood development is really informative to what made you kill them.” 

DeSanto fidgets. 

Bill represses a sigh, wondering if they’re going to be here all day wringing each detail out of the man as if they’re extracting teeth. He reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes, and extends the open pack toward DeSanto. 

“Cigarette?” 

“Yeah, thanks.” DeSanto says, accepting one of the cigarettes. 

Bill offers him a light, and DeSanto leans in to puff on the cigarette until the flame takes hold. Leaning back in his chair, he exhales a ring of smoke toward the ceiling. 

“It says here that you were raised by your father.” Holden says, consulting his case file. “What happened to your mother?”

“She ran off when I was real young.” DeSanto says, keeping his gaze fixed upward. “My father built houses for rich people. She took a liking to one of them.”

“She abandoned you.”

DeSanto nods slowly, his eyes reaching down to meet Holden’s. 

“How did your father take it?”

“How do you think?”

“Well, I’m sure he was devastated.” Holden says, “But it was probably hard for him to take care of you by himself without a woman around to do the housework.”

“I guess you could say that. I worked with him.” DeSanto says. 

“He made you work on houses with him?” Bill asks, “How old were you?”

“Ten years old maybe?” 

“That seems dangerous.” Bill says. 

“We both got hurt on the job a lot, but I learned everything I knew about carpentry and electrical work from him.” 

“I’ll be honest, Edward.” Holden says, “Most of the people we talk to aren’t as skilled as you are.”

DeSanto takes a drag of the cigarette, and shrugs. “I s’pose.”

“Suppose? I’d say it takes a lot of skill to be a builder like that.”

“Well, my father didn’t really think so. I was always getting in his way, messing things up; he had to fix a lot of my mistakes.”

“You were just a kid.” Bill points out. 

“He was always telling me to be a man. Grow up, you know; stop blubbering.”

Bill shifts uncomfortably in his chair, and takes a drag of his own cigarette. It’s overwhelmingly humid inside the correctional facility. He can feel sweat lining his back, but it’s only a faint annoyance compared to the rising din in the back of his mind. Compartmentalizing his emotions away from these interviews had once been a perfunctory part of this job, but these days, it’s becoming more and more difficult - especially when a killer like DeSanto is parroting back parts of his own childhood memories to him. 

Holden clears his throat. “So, would you say it was around this time that you started thinking violently towards women?” 

“You could say that.”

“Did you fantasize about it back then? Experiment?”

“At first I was just angry with my mom for leaving.” DeSanto says, “I guess you could say that’s when it started. I really hated her for leaving. But things didn’t get really bad until-”

Except for the distant shout of prisoners, silence hovers. 

Bill peers across the table at DeSanto through a sheen of cigarette smoke as the man hesitates. His stomach churns. The person across from him doesn’t look like a killer, but a traumatized child wrapped up in an adult’s body. 

“What happened, Edward?” Holden asks, softly. 

“Well, um-” DeSanto says, clearing his throat. “I was maybe twelve. My dad got this idea into his brain that I was …”

“Was what?” 

DeSanto lifts his chin, as if physically steeling himself against the words. “A queer.”

Bill looks away from DeSanto and toward Holden. Their gazes meet momentarily before Holden rearranges his expression to one of calm objectivity and focuses on DeSanto. Sweat trails down his temple and gleams on his throat. Bill can feel his own chest burning, the urgent, flaring instinct to get himself away from this topic and conversation as quickly as possible. 

“What did he do?” Holden asks. 

“He hired a lot of prostitutes.” DeSanto says, “And he paid one of them to go into my room. She was a lot older than me, you know; almost my mom’s age. She wore a lot of makeup to make herself look younger, but I remember when she took her shirt off, her breasts hung real low.”

Bill braces his elbows against the table, and rubs a discreet hand across the perspiration lining his brow. He feels queasy. 

“She took your virginity?” Holden asks, his voice a gentle whisper against the hollow echo of the cafeteria. 

“Yeah. Afterward, my father came in and asked me how it was. I told him it was good. He said I wouldn’t be having queer thoughts again. He was going to make a man out of me.”

“And did you? Have queer thoughts again?”

DeSanto lifts his eyes from his lap to cast Holden a detached gaze. “No.” 

***

The drive from the correctional facility to the hotel is silent. 

Holden lowers the window to allow in a gust of hot, humid air while the radio plays at low volume. A weather report on the record-breaking hot temperatures interrupts Aerosmith, and Bill feels like puking out the window onto the pavement. 

As they pull into the lot of the hotel, Holden takes off his seatbelt, but doesn’t move to open the door. 

“I usually don’t feel sorry for them.” He says, quietly. “I want to analyze them, dissect them, but with DeSanto-”

“He killed eight women, Holden.” Bill says, stiffly. “I don’t pity him, and neither should you.”

“His father paid to have him  _ raped  _ at twelve years old.” Holden says, “Could you imagine the trauma that caused? How much he must have hated himself for his sexuality?”

“That doesn’t give him a licence to kill innocent women. Do I really need to explain that to you?”

“No, but even if he hadn’t gone on to kill anyone, he never had a chance.” Holden says, shaking his head. 

“We all make our own choices. Even people with shitty fathers.” Bill says, twisting the keys out of the ignition. “Come on, it’s hot as hell out here.”

Holden shuffles to the trunk with Bill to retrieve their bags. 

“But isn’t this the question our study is asking?” He presses, his gaze burning into Bill’s temple as Bill bends to grab his suitcase. “Nature versus nurture? We can’t deny that being sexually assaulted and abused at a young age can be a factor in determining these men’s psychology.”

“So, all people who were abused in childhood are going to turn out like that? Because they never ‘had a chance’?” Bill demands, straightening to cast Holden a cutting glare. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not necessarily.” 

“It sure as hell sounds like it.” Bill says, slamming the trunk lid shut. 

He turns to march toward the hotel, but Holden quietly saying his name makes him stop. He pauses with the weight of his suitcase tugging on his arm, his temples aching from the persistent heat. 

“You’re not anything like DeSanto.” Holden says, softly. “I know that.”

Bill turns to look at him, ire gathering in his chest, but he can’t regurgitate some version of the defensive rage he’s always used to protect himself with Holden’s sunlit, blue eyes taking him apart. 

“Neither am I.” Holden adds. 

Bill swallows hard, tasting acid. The midday heat and sunlight edges his vision with white prickles as his chest thuds. His feet are rooted to the pavement for the course of ten seconds before he forces himself into motion. 

Holden follows him into the hotel where the chilled blast of air conditioning soothes the fevered heat on Bill’s forehead. They check in and find their way to their rooms, two doors positioned side-by-side with the relief of a wall standing in between them. Bill bids Holden goodnight, and pulls his door shut behind him. 

He showers for twenty minutes, spending most of that time huddled beneath the spray with the water pounding out the tension gathered at the base of his skull.

For years, he’s erected walls against these thoughts, but it was like Nancy and Brian - the facade of the perfect, heterosexual family - had been the glue keeping it all from crumbling. With that foundational support gone, he feels naked and exposed to the cruel whimsy of the world and the dark, winding path of his own thoughts. Everything is falling down around him. 

Later that night, he drinks all the little bottles of whiskey from the minifridge and crawls into bed with his head humming. It isn’t enough to stop his ruminations from running away with him, from taking him backwards in time to a moment when he’d been as defenseless as young DeSanto. 

He can see Fred’s face clearly in his mind, his mouth whispering, “Calm down. It’s all right. This isn’t going to hurt.” 

But it had hurt. Not physically, but in ways that couldn’t be mended or consoled, not even in the stretch of decades. He’d spent almost all of that time convincing himself first that it hadn’t happened, and second - when he couldn’t deny it any longer - that it doesn’t define him, an effort which is all looking a little pointless in the face of the things he’s done.  _ It’s a wonder he isn’t chained to a prison bench just like DeSanto _ , he thinks; _ a goddamn wonder _ . 

When he and Holden get back to Quantico, Bill watches Holden hand off the tape to Gregg to be transcribed with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach; but it doesn’t feel like panic any longer, just the cold, heavy weight of realization. It sits there, growing denser for the rest of the day until the itch becomes a burn. 

At the end of the work day, he crosses the hallway from the annex to the original block of offices that Wendy and Holden still work out of. The office is nearly deserted at this hour, but as he heads for Wendy’s office, Holden’s door opens. He comes out first, followed by the same sandy-haired man that Bill had witnessed emerging from Holden’s hotel room those weeks ago in Atlanta. 

“Bill,” Holden says, stopping in his tracks so that his friend nearly collides into his shoulder. 

“Holden.”

“I didn’t realize you were still here.”

“I was just going in to talk to Wendy.” Bill says, regarding the pair with forcibly amiable gaze. 

The silent stalemate is only broken when Holden’s friend awkwardly clears his throat, and shoulders past Holden to extend his hand. 

“Hi, I’m Elliot. I’m a friend of Holden’s.” He says, flashing a smile that’s full of pearly white teeth and dimples. “You must be Bill.”

“Yeah, I know who you are.” Bill says, and it comes out harsher than he’d meant. 

Elliot’s brow flickers with a frown. The cordial grip of his handshake softens and quickly retreats. 

“Elliot’s up visiting from Atlanta.” Holden says, filling the tense silence with an overtly casual tone. “I was just giving him a tour, but we’re leaving now.”

Elliot casts Holden a confused glance as Holden grasps him by the elbow to usher him toward the door. 

Holden shoots Bill a forced smile as he marches past him. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you.” Bill says, turning on his heel to watch the two of them exit the office. 

The heavy, metal door slams shut behind them with a thud that echoes against the vast, cement walls. Bill can feel the reverberation in his chest, or rather the unheard tenor of the last of his pride crumbling. He doesn’t have the will for incensed jealousy any longer, only the stinging urge to get as far away from here as he can so that he never has to see Holden walking away from him with someone else again. 

He raps his knuckles on Wendy’s door, and slips inside when he hears her quiet beckon. 

She looks up from the stacks of case files and the legal pad filled with her neat, cursive longhand, and gives him a kind smile. 

“Hi.”

“Hi, do you have a minute?”

She sets her pen down. “Of course.”

Bill pulls the door shut behind him, and regards her with a tenuous gaze. His pulse spikes with last-minute anxiety. The familiarity of his rapport with her makes him second-guess his decisions, but it isn’t enough to quash his resolve. 

He draws in a deep breath, and pushes forward. “We need to talk.” 

***

At a little past midnight, Holden’s bedroom is draped in the yellow-white clash of moonlight and streetlamps seeping past the curtains. From far below, he can hear the rumble of cars passing by, and the intermittent wail of sirens cutting through the night. In the recesses of the building, the AC kicks on to combat the summer heat. 

The sheets are kicked back from Holden’s legs, but Elliot is curled on his side with the blankets tucked to his chest. He’s been asleep for two hours, ever since they both wore each other out. Meanwhile, Holden is staring up at the ceiling thinking about Bill’s sensitivity about the DeSanto interview, and the flinch of pain in his eyes when he saw Elliot tonight. 

A deep sigh escapes his chest. Bill doesn’t have any right to jealousy. He’d sabotaged their relationship early on just as it was beginning to grow into something real. The fact that he’d turned to Holden when Nancy left doesn’t change a thing; it was instinctive desire, an attempt to fill in the aching hole in his heart with something else. It doesn’t mean he’s changed, though Holden wants it to. In fact, his insistence that what they had makes both of them deviant - and no different from DeSanto - proves just the opposite. 

He wishes he could stop wanting things to be different. 

Disentangling his feet from the sheets, Holden climbs out of bed, and shuffles into the kitchen. He fills a cup with water from the tap, and leans against the counter to survey the shadowy outline of the living room, the scene of their last intimate moment. 

That night dogs him vividly like some kind of vengeful ghost. Bill saying,  _ I’m not a faggot. Maybe you are, but I’m not.  _ It hurt more than anything not just for its viciousness, but because, of all of Bill’s lies, that one had been the most monumental. And he’d had the nerve to say it to Holden, a more able witness to the truth than anyone else.

It doesn’t matter that Holden knows he was just trying to protect himself with anger and deceit; it was a deep wound he can't reverse - though now, Holden wonders if he has a right to bitterness the same as Bill has no right to jealousy. Bill warned him long ago, on a spring evening before the water, that he was going to hurt him, and he had. That one thing had never been a lie. 

Holden drains the last of his water, and tells himself to go back to bed with Elliot to try to get some sleep. After sharing some incredible sex with another man, he’s out here thinking about Bill. He’d agreed to Elliot’s plan of coming up to visit from Atlanta for the sole reason of not thinking about Bill. 

When Holden goes back to the bedroom, Elliot rolls over onto his back and holds out both arms. 

“What are you doing up?”

“I was thirsty.”

Holden crawls across the mattress to Elliot, and settles down on his belly with his elbows propped under him. Elliot drapes his arms around Holden’s shoulders to pull him down into a kiss. 

“You drained me dry.” Holden murmurs in between lazy kisses. 

Elliot chuckles softly. 

Holden sighs, pulling his mouth from the kiss. He’s glad for the darkness so that Elliot can’t see the conflict in his eyes. 

“Thanks for coming up here. I needed it.”

“Yeah.” Elliot murmurs, “I can tell. This place is kind of lonely.”

“What? My apartment?”

“Mhmm.”

“Well, it’s a little sparse, I’ll admit. I’m hardly ever here.”

“So, I might not be able to pin you down like this ever again?” Elliot asks, running his fingers through Holden’s hair. 

“Maybe not. Especially not if I end up getting into a case like Atlanta again.”

“Well, that’s all right. Today was nice.” Elliot says, in his soft, Georgian drawl that makes everything seem A-Okay. 

Holden presses his eyes shut. He wants to believe that he’s going to be okay.

“Can I ask you a question?” Elliot whispers. 

“Oh, God. At one in the morning?” 

“Yeah.”

“Okay, fine.”

“You told me before that you were in a relationship where you got hurt.” Elliot says. 

Holden clenches his jaw. He’d said that after a few drinks in the hotel bar when Elliot was being particularly sweet, and he needed to explain why he wanted to slow things down between them. He hadn’t meant for it to be brought up again. 

“Was it him? Your partner …. Bill?”

Holden pulls out of Elliot’s embrace, and sits up to rub both hands over his face. 

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to pry.”

“I know that, but I don’t really like to talk about it.”

“So it was him.”

Holden doesn’t answer. He keeps both hands braced over his face as Elliot sits up behind him and presses a kiss to his shoulder. 

“Hey, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” Holden mumbles into his palms, “You’re a rebound. How does that feel?”

“Not great, obviously.” Elliot says, “But I’ve dated a lot of married men. Not that you’re married, but you’re not the type to half-ass anything - that much I know.”

Holden gives a choked laugh, and drags his hands away from his face. Turning his chin against his shoulder, he peeks at Elliot in the dim moonlight. 

“Are we dating?”

“If you want, but I kind of have a feeling you’re really hung up on him.”

Holden groans, leaning his forehead into Elliot’s neck. “Fuck. I know. But he can be such an asshole.”

“How’s that?”

“He told me he’s not a faggot. Then called me a faggot.”

Elliot grunts. “I wish that was the first time I’ve heard that, but it isn’t. Either way, you’re right. He is an asshole because he let you get away.”

Holden pulls his face away from Elliot’s neck. “That’s what I keep telling myself. But I love him, I think. That’s terrible isn’t it?”

“The worst. Does he know?”

“I tried to tell him.” 

Elliot lifts his shoulders. “Then maybe you should try a little harder. That is, if you love him so much.” 

Holden glances away. His chest aches, too heavy for such a late night. He drops back against the pillows with a sigh. 

“I do.” He whispers, “He’s just been … He’s been hurt, too, you know.”

Elliot lays down with his elbow propped underneath him, and his gaze traveling over Holden’s stoic profile. “Hurt in your relationship?” 

“No. By someone else a long time ago. How do you get to someone who has spent years closing themselves off just to avoid getting hurt again?”

Elliot sighs, quietly, and reaches over to touch Holden’s shoulder. “Just be there for them. Other than that, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a lost cause, honey.”

Holden keeps his gaze focused on the ceiling, afraid that if he looks at Elliot it will be the moment he breaks under the pressure of his own needs he doesn’t want to admit that he has. 

“Maybe.” He mutters, tugging the sheets over himself. He rolls over, pulling his shoulder free of Elliot’s gentle hand. “We should get to sleep. It’s really late.” 

Elliot lays down next to him, not pressing for anymore details. After a little while, his breathing drops off into the staggered rhythm of sleep. 

Holden stays awake for another hour, wrestling with his thoughts in the dark. A part of him is glad that Elliot pulled back the curtain on exactly what this relationship is. Not dating, but a rebound. Filling an empty space that has the distinct shape of Bill. 

Holden screws his eyes shut and tries for logic:  _ Just get over it. Get over him. It’s not any good for you.  _ But nothing about him and Bill had ever had anything to do with logic; it had all been heat, impulse, connection, and desire. In the end, more love than either of them could bear at the time. He’s still waiting around to see if those times are ever going to change. 


	8. lost causes

After two days, Holden drives Elliot to the airport for his 9AM flight back to Atlanta. The goodbyes are stilted and brief. Elliot says he’ll call Holden later. Holden says he’ll try to answer; he’s very busy with work. 

The next morning, he wakes up alone. The shrill ringing of his alarm clock alerts him to the fact that the weekend is over and it’s time to get back to work. Rolling over, he flings a hand blindly toward the ringing clock, and plunges the room into silence. 

He lays still for several moments, forcing his eyes open and taking in his limbs sprawled across the length of the mattress. Guilt over how he’s chosen to end things with Elliot rises in his belly, but he quickly presses it back down with the logic that it wouldn’t be fair to keep stringing the other man along when he has no intention of fully investing in the relationship. Though Elliot hadn’t gotten to know him well, he’d been right about one thing - Holden is hung up on a lost cause. 

_ What’s new?  _ He thinks, grimly, pushing himself up from the sheets and rubbing lingering fuzziness from his eyes.  _ He’s the fucking patron saint of lost causes.  _

He arrives at work early to find the finished transcript of the DeSanto interview sitting on his desk. As he sits down to thumb through the text, the mail carrier shoulders his way into the office, pulling the cart behind him. 

“Good morning.” Holden says, barely looking up. 

“Good morning.” The carrier says, looking through the stacks of mail bound in rubber bands. He clears his throat. “Sorry, I’m kind of new around here. Is Agent Tench in this office as well?”

“Over in the annex.” Holden says, glancing up from the transcript. “Here, I’ll take it this time.”

“I would really appreciate it, if it’s not too much trouble.” The man says, shooting him a grateful smile. “I’m running behind this morning.”

“No problem.” Holden says, taking the stack of mail. 

The mail carrier drops off a stack at Wendy’s desk before scurrying out of the office. 

Holden’s gaze drops to the mail in his lap as the door slams shut behind the departing courier. He can’t help but notice that the envelope sitting on the very top is addressed to Bill and is marked with the Academy insignia. 

Curiously, Holden slides the envelope out of the rubber band, and turns it over in his hands. He usually wouldn’t feel obligated to snoop, but Bill has been so private and reticent since Nancy left that he can’t help but wonder. Bill’s behavior during and after the DeSanto interview pushed that curious itch to an unavoidable sting. 

Setting aside the letter from the Academy, Holden thumbs through the rest of the stack without finding anything else that lacks logical explanation. Most of it is work-related correspondence from correctional facilities and police departments that they’re consulting with, a handful of junk mail, and one from his lawyer’s office that Holden wouldn’t forgive himself for opening. 

Biting his lower lip, Holden braces his elbows on the desk, and holds the envelope from the Academy beneath his lamp. He can’t make out the words through the paper. 

Glancing around the empty office, he reaches over to grab his letter opener from the corner of his desk. He turns it around in his hand, ignoring the conscience in the back of his mind that’s telling him to stop being nosy.  His own words from back in Atlanta rise in the back of his mind:  _ We’re not sleeping together anymore. So why do you even care?  _ But he does care - far too much. 

Pushing aside his guilt, Holden slips the blade of the letter opener beneath the lip of the envelope, and cuts it cleanly open. The letter inside is printed on official stationery that’s sturdy and crisp. The letterhead displays the Academy insignia, and the contents begins on a congratulatory note. 

It takes less than a minute to read the letter, but almost double that time for the implications to reach buried, volatile emotions. Stomach sinking, he scans the empty bowels of the office with first dismay and then disbelief flushing his veins. He skims the letter again, assuring himself that he had read it accurately the first time. It’s all there in black and white. 

He breaks out of his paralyzed position in his chair, and leaps to his feet with the letter clutched in his trembling fist. Marching across the office, he storms out into the hallway and rounds the corner to the annex.

The conference room door is standing open. Bill and Wendy are sitting at the table with the transcript from the DeSanto interview in front of them, sipping coffee while they wait for Holden and Gregg to join them. Bill has his back turned to the door, and doesn’t see Holden coming until he saunters into the conference room with the letter crumpled in his raised fist. 

“You’re leaving?” Holden demands, his voice coming out all shaky and breathless, not at all the way he’d intended. 

Bill and Wendy both turn in their chairs to cast him startled gazes. Wendy’s expression is one of glacial sobriety, the kind that says she was already informed of this decision, but Bill appears blind-sided, his mouth going slack with horror when he glimpses the letter in Holden’s hand. 

“Where did you get that?” He asks, rising to his feet. 

“It came in the mail this morning.” Holden replies, hastily, “Why does that matter? You’re leaving - to go  _ teach?” _

“You went through my mail?”

“How could you do this without telling me?”

Wendy clears her throat, and rises to her feet. “I think I should give you two a minute alone.”

Holden casts her scathing glare. “You knew about this?”

She averts her gaze briefly before meeting his betrayed stare with a cool demeanor. “Bill asked me not to tell you.”

Holden turns back to Bill who has his hands braced on his hips and his gaze fixed toward the carpet while he shakes his head.

“Excuse me.” Wendy murmurs, slipping past him toward the door. 

The anger in Holden’s chest hardens as the door slams shut behind her, leaving him and Bill alone in the conference room. 

“I knew things were bad.” Holden says, “But I didn’t think you were going to abandon us and the study like this.”

“I’m not abandoning it. We’ll find someone to replace me.”

“This letter says the teaching position starts in three weeks.” Holden says, glancing down at the words printed so neatly and uniformly, ripping him apart with cold formality. “We’re going to replace  _ you  _ in three weeks time? With who?”

“The study is going to be fine without me. It was your idea from the beginning anyway. If someone leaving would hurt our work, it would be you, Holden - not me.”

“That’s not true, and it’s not the point.” Holden says, dropping the letter onto the conference room table and averting his gaze from Bill’s, “I can’t do this job without you.”

Bill grunts a wry chuckle. “Please. You would do this job all on your own if you had to - without help from anyone.”

“Fine. Yes.” Holden says, lifting his hands. His throat knots, but not so hard that he can’t admit: “But I don’t  _ want  _ to do this job without you.” 

Holden hesitantly meets Bill’s gaze. For the first time in months, he can see clear to the back of Bill’s eyes and into his brain, the hurt bleeding out in the faded, bruised blue, the once-burning vitality in him dwindling away. 

“You’re going to have to.” Bill says, spreading his hands helplessly. “I’m sorry, Holden. I can’t do this anymore.”

“What do you mean - can’t do it?”

Bill sighs, pulling his cigarettes from his pocket. “Don’t act like you haven’t noticed.”

“Noticed …. Noticed what?” 

Bill’s mouth curls into a thin line around his cigarette as he brings the lighter to the tip. The tip ignites and smoke billows from his lips, the same habitual actions that Holden has come to both despise and anticipate. As much as he detests the cloying smell of nicotine, he wonders now if it’s one of the last times he’s ever going to see Bill light up; and he wishes he could have it one hundred more times before he decides to leave for good. 

“I’m not very good at this job anymore.” Bill says, dragging his cigarette from his mouth and exhaling smoke. “I can’t look at these men objectively the way I used to. When I see their fucked up childhoods and how their urge to kill has been building since they were young, I can’t help but think of Brian, of …. of-”

Holden swallows hard. He hears that last phrase ringing unsaid in his head:  _ of myself.  _

“In the DeSanto interview, I was just holding you back. So, if I’m not doing my job right anymore, to the point where it’s actually impeding the work, then I think it’s time for me to leave. You have to agree with that.”

Bill shifts his gaze back to Holden through a shroud of smoke. His eyes are squinted, steeled against emotion. 

“Bill, if this is because of me … because of  _ us _ -”

“It isn’t.”

“Then you could have told me. You could have talked to me the way you talked to Wendy.”

“Wendy listened to what I had to say objectively. Obviously she doesn’t want me to leave either, but she told me I need to do what’s best for me and my family. Would you have said the same thing?”

Holden glances down at his shoes. “Well, I would have tried to-”

“No. You would have convinced me to stay - or at least tried your damndest. This way it’s done. It’s out of both of our hands.”

Holden presses his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, and pinches hard. His ankles feel weak and heavy as if he’s being sucked down by quicksand, and he’s helpless to do anything about his situation. His anger at Bill’s deception is already failing, and now he’s swallowing back pathetic pleas. He would drop to the ground at Bill’s feet if he thought it would change things. He would give away the last of his dignity. But it’s too late. 

He scoffs quietly, and shakes his head. 

“What?” Bill asks. 

“Trying to get college-age students to listen and learn isn’t going to be anything like road school was. You’re going to hate teaching.”

“Maybe at first. But we have to get used to the way things are.”

“Okay, so you’re giving up.” Holden says, spreading his hands. “But you can’t just expect me to lay down and accept it without at least trying to change your mind.”

“I realize that, but it isn’t your decision. It’s mine, and it’s been made.”

Holden gazes at him with mounting bewilderment as Bill retrieves the letter from the table, folds it up, and tucks it in his pocket. He sits back down, and puts his reading glasses on to open the transcript. 

“Can you get Wendy back in here?” He asks, checking his watch. “We should get going on this interview.”

Holden stares at his stoic profile, thinking of arguing further, but realizing it would be pointless. He turns stiffly to open the conference room door. 

Wendy glances up from where she’s talking with Gregg. Pushing away from the desk, she approaches him with a sympathetic gaze masked by a layer of professionalism. 

“Ready?”

He nods wordlessly. 

Gregg follows them into the conference room with a terse, yet informed expression on his face. As they all settle in to listen to the tape and review the transcript, a little pit of misery opens up in the bottom of Holden’s stomach. 

He was the last to know. Bill might have kept it from him until his last day if Holden hadn’t opened that letter. He could have walked out the BSU door for the last time without so much as a goodbye. It seems undeniably cruel, but Holden can’t bear to be angry. Bill will be gone soon, and there isn’t anything he can do about it. Three weeks has never before felt like such a scarce amount of time. 

***

**August, 1980**

**Fredericksburg, Virginia**

Two weeks pass in the blink of an eye. Bill spends the majority of that time avoiding Holden except for the interview they have scheduled at the end of the second week. 

Holden has to at least respect Bill for his dedication to seeing his job through the last three weeks. He does his research for the interview, engages with the subject, and takes thorough notes. Never once does he act as if he’s given up on their assignments simply because he won’t be around much longer. The last push, in fact, only makes his decision sting hotter in Holden’s chest. 

They used to be good at this together. The best. Irreplaceable. 

As they drive to the airport, Holden focuses his gaze forward at the road ahead, and tries not to think about how, in another week’s time, he’s going to be doing these interviews with someone else. Likely Gregg. 

The plane ride home is quiet. Darkness falls outside the narrow window to Holden’s left, and as they get closer to Fredericksburg, a thunderstorm looms in the distance. Dark, puffy clouds flash with contained lightning like scenes from a snowglobe that’s not yet shattered and fallen down into reality. He can hear the patter of rain drumming on the wings as they begin a rocky descent, and by the time they land, the air is humid and electric with the approaching late-summer storm. 

They walk through the parking garage without attempting to speak to one another over the rising howl of the wind, and Holden barely hears Bill’s muttered ‘goodnight’ before he gets into his vehicle. 

He watches Bill’s Plymouth crawl toward the parking garage exit with a dull pain thrumming in his chest. Over the course of the last twelve hours, they’d barely spoken two words to each other on a topic outside of the interview subject. Holden had tried, but Bill wasn’t interested. 

_ This is how our last week is going to be spent together.  _ Holden thinks. Their once passionate love affair is ending with a pathetic whimper, both of them giving up trying, washing their hands of it, walking away. 

Holden starts to drive home. He’s halfway there when the dark, angry clouds overhead split open with a blinding sliver of lightning and a crack of thunder. Rain spatters Holden’s windshield in stammering staccato for only a few seconds before the deluge begins in earnest. The windshield wipers dash frantically across the pane, but he can hardly see the road ahead of him. 

After driving another few miles in the heavy torrent, he pulls along the curb, and parks to watch the rain hammer against the pavement. Beneath the hollow drum of the downpour hitting the exterior of the car, he hears the dull roar of his own contained emotions bursting free. 

_ It’s useless. He won’t listen to me.  _ He thinks, rubbing a hand over his eyes. A small voice, his own stupid obsitance, whispers back to him,  _ So make him listen.  _

Checking up and down the road, Holden shifts his car back into drive, and pulls it into a tight U-turn. 

What would typically take him ten minutes to get from his neighborhood to Bill’s takes almost twenty as he creeps through the pounding rain with limited visibility. His heart races the whole way, making his palms sweaty against the stiff leather of the steering wheel; a few times he thinks of turning back and not wasting his breath, but a deeper part of him not held back by his pride and hurt feelings tells him that, in a few years, he won’t be able to live with himself if he doesn’t try one last time. 

When he reaches Bill’s house, the porch light is a distant, yellow smudge obscured by rain, but shining through the darkness all the same. Holden draws in a shaky breath, shoves the door open, and lunges out into the rain towards the beacon. 

He’s immediately drenched, the open, wind-tugged flaps of his coat providing little protection as he runs across the street. Rain stings his cheeks and eyes like a thousand tiny needles falling from the sky. Squinting, he nearly stumbles when he reaches the steps leading up to the porch. He grabs onto the cold, wet railing, and climbs the stairs until he reaches the small haven of the porch overhang. 

Wiping water from his eyes, he gathers his composure as much as possible with rain soaking every inch of him before knocking on the front door. 

Bill opens the door to Holden standing on the welcome mat, shivering, and dripping from head-to-toe. 

“Holden?” 

Holden’s teeth chatter wordlessly. His impulsivity hadn’t thought beyond this point. 

“What are you doing?” Bill asks, a worried frown forming on his brow.

“I’m sorry. I had to come.” Holden says, his voice trembling and chilled. 

Bill’s bewildered gaze slowly shifts into realization. 

“Holden, we’ve talked about this. You’re not going to change my mind - no matter what drastic measures you take.” He says, waving a disbelieving hand at Holden’s drenched appearance. “Christ, you shouldn’t have-”

“Can you please just let me say something.” Holden interrupts, lifting bone-white fingers to stop Bill’s dismay. 

“Okay. Fine.” Bill allows, with a defeated sigh. 

“That night last year, when you took me out to the lake and said we were only going to talk about it once …”

“Yeah?” 

“You told me I had to choose. You said we could have an affair, and I would break up my relationship with my girlfriend. And I did. You said I was going to have to look at you at work every day for God knows how long - and I have. And you said that it was going to end in pain - and it has.”

“You're saying I was right?”

“No. I’m saying I tried to have it both ways, just like you said. I tried to negotiate my way into your life. I tried to have you and not have you at the same time. I didn't choose you. It was just half-measures, never fully committing to it. We were both guilty of that.”

Bill’s eyes soften as Holden casts him a pleading gaze. The silence fills in with the drum of the rain and the distant rumble of thunder. Water leaks down Holden’s spine, but he’s lost concentration on how the chill is seeping down into his bones. 

“Being with you wasn’t the mistake.” Holden says, “It was just bad timing. I realize now that I do want to try, and I shouldn’t have pushed you away so hard that night when we got back from Atlanta. I was just … hurt, upset. I wasn’t thinking right, and now you’re leaving so I had to tell you.”

Bill swallows hard, and gives his head a confused shake. “I, uh … I thought you were with Elliot now.”

“No. I sent him back to Atlanta. Actually, he was the one who told me that I should try harder to tell you …”

“Tell me what?”

“That, I …” Holden whispers, his chin dropping as tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. He sucks in a deep breath, forcing them back down again, and firmly meets Bill’s gaze. “I love you. That I’ve loved you for a long time. Maybe I was already falling in love with you from the moment you touched me in that awful, disgusting bathroom. And that I don’t care what happened to you before, or what anyone else has done to you, or what you’ve done to yourself - I don’t care if you tell me, but I want you to think that you can. I want you to want me - and to choose me because I choose you. I choose you right now, tonight, and every night after this.”

Bill gazes at him in quiet awe, his mouth pursed against a faint quiver, the blue of his eyes sharpened by the sting of emotion. 

Holden draws in a hitched breath, and swipes at the hot tear cutting down his cold, rain-damp cheek. 

“I’m sorry if this is a lot, but I know what will happen if I don’t do this right now - you’ll go, you’ll say that you’ll stay in touch, but you won’t. You’re going to run away like you always do, and I might not hear from you again for another three years. Then what will it take for our paths to cross again? An act of God?”

“Holden. Jesus, come in here.” Bill says, his voice strained with pained regret as he catches Holden by the wrist to pull him out of the rain and into the warmth of the house. 

As the door swings shut behind them, Bill cradles his chilled cheek in a strong, warm palm. 

“Christ, you’re soaked.” He says, his gaze drifting down the wet clothes plastered to Holden’s trembling body. “You’re going to make yourself sick. We should-”

“Bill,” Holden says, softly interrupting Bill’s concern. 

He nudges his fingers under Bill’s chin, and Bill slowly lifts his eyes to meet Holden’s again. He’s shivering almost as much as Holden. 

“That night at the lake, you also said that you were going to hurt me - and you have.” Holden whispers, his voice dwindling. 

Bill’s eyes press shut as Holden’s cold fingers trace his cheek, the length of his jawline, pausing against his trembling lower lip. 

“If what I just said isn’t enough - if you decide to leave next week - then I want you to hurt me.” Holden says, forcing his voice to stop trembling, to say this plainly, as firmly as he can.

Bill’s heavy eyelids slip open again, taking in the resolve in Holden’s eyes with budding shock and irrepressible desire. 

“Tonight,” Holden presses, drawing Bill’s chin closer to him, “Hurt me one last time.”

“Holden …” 

Bill whispers his name like the last notes of a dying protest, a helpless cry swallowed up by more potent desires. It falls and fades, melding away into the desperate press of his mouth against Holden’s, into the damp clash of his warm lips against Holden’s shivering, chilled ones.

Holden hums a pleased groan into Bill’s mouth as the kiss deepens, tongue flicking past his open lips, teeth scraping gently at tender skin. Bill’s hand secures his jaw, angling the kiss so that Holden’s mouth is pinned and helpless below his fervent strokes tasting and taking the offered desires. The closeness of Bill’s body, all solid and warm against him, absorbs rain water but builds heat until he can’t feel the bone-deep, drenched chill any longer. He loops an arm around Bill’s neck, ensuring he stays just that close even as Bill’s mouth extricates itself from the hungry, wild kiss. 

He pants softly against Holden’s damp mouth, and strokes an anxious thumb across his cheek. 

“You’re impossible.” He whispers, his voice strained with conflicted need. “You’re making this impossible.”

“So are you.” Holden says, nipping softly at Bill’s lower lip. “You did this to me.”

Bill growls quietly, and leans into the kiss again, bitten lower lip succumbing to the warm suckle of Holden’s mouth. As their tongues meet in a messy tangle, he strips the wet trench coat back from Holden’s shoulders. It lands in a damp pile at their feet, left behind when Bill breaks the kiss long enough to lead them to the bedroom. 

Neither of them bother to the turn lights on as their mouths meet again, a wet, sloppy exchange of lips and tongue that do more to devour than caress. 

Holden feels unbridled, untethered, the last of his hesitation burnt away beneath the fire of this need that he’s been smothering since the fateful night after Vacaville. He’s going up in flames; maybe he’s destroying himself, letting Bill destroy him, but Bill is going with him, down against the sheets. 

In the semi-darkness, they fumble hastily with Holden’s damp, knotted tie, the too many buttons lining shirts, the belts and zippers. Underneath, Holden’s skin is still damp and pebbled with goose-bumps, smelling salty of rain, but he quickly warms to the touch of Bill’s hand crawling across naked skin. When the last garment is stripped away from between them, Bill pushes between his legs, and Holden feels the hard, thick length of his cock rubbing against his own - and the divine friction makes him want to scream and cry all at once:  _ God, how I’ve missed you! God, how could you do this to me? _

But he’s smothered into silence as Bill kisses him, hard across the mouth, biting his lower lip, biting his chin, sucking bruises into his throat. He throws his head back, willing, whimpering softly as Bill’s fingers curl into his hair and nearly pull a hundred tiny strands out by the root. The pressure burns no more intensely than the scathe of a tongue against his nipple, followed by teeth, by a hard suckle that makes tender skin sting and ache. 

Holden cries out helplessly as the kisses rain lower, devastating him, across his other nipple - until both are bruised - against his quivering belly, down into the nest of hair where his cock rises unbearably swollen. A pair of fingers card through the wiry curls, barely tugging, while the other hand pushes his legs apart. When he’s pinned, his legs eagerly raised open to his chest, Bill’s mouth persistently burns it’s way across every scrap of offered, vulnerable flesh. 

It starts out at the tip of his cock, a wet, hot suction of his lips that makes Holden see stars but doesn’t linger. Slick flicks of tongue and grazes of teeth brand their way down the pulsing shaft, encouraging the branching veins ribbing the fat length. By the time Bill’s mouth reaches his balls, Holden is writhing, choking on his own saliva, panting awe-struck whimpers of arousal and shock; he can’t prepare himself as lips and tongue go to work on the tender sacs, licking and tracing, kissing and sucking. 

At some points, the pressure of Bill’s mouth on the sensitive flesh is almost more than he can bear, and his feet are pushing against Bill’s shoulders in a desperate attempt to gain himself a moment to regroup. Bill only grabs him by the undersides of his thighs and pushes his legs back into place against his chest, eliminating the last of his leverage before his mouth comes down again, doubly eager. 

Holden lapses back against the pillows, and hangs onto the rungs of the headboard in a hapless attempt to brace himself. His mouth is stretched open in a perpetual cry of bewildered pleasure, but only faint, choked whimpers emerge as Bill’s mouth latches back onto him, finishing off its thorough pleasuring of his aching balls before moving on to his taut hole. The clamped ring of muscle is already pulsing with the force of arousal surging through his groin, rendering him tenderly stimulated by the time Bill’s tongue crashes wetly against him. 

“Oh my god …” Holden cries, his head thrashing feverishly against the pillows. 

He tries to keep his knees raised against his chest, but all too soon his back is arching, and his feet are curling helplessly against empty air. 

Bill’s mouth comes off him, leaving his skin vacant yet humming with intense friction. Beyond the window, lighting cuts across the sky, plastering white-hot light over the primal hunger in his pale blue eyes for five seconds before the room is plunged into darkness again.

“Turn over.” Bill says, his voice a gravelly hiss from among shadows. 

Holden shakily rolls onto his belly. His cock aches as if it could burst, but it gets little friction against the sheets before Bill guides him up onto his knees. A whimper climbs the back of his throat, muffled in the pillow, as Bill gently presses his face down into the bed. The other hand cradles his ass cheek, stretching him open wider. 

Holden's body pulses against cool air, aching and hollow, until Bill spits into his opening. The glob of saliva lands thick and wet, and Holden jolts with a quiet gasp of shock. He’s still reeling when a pair of fingertips slide through the glaze of moisture to smear it around his hole in languid, tantalizing circles. 

“Ohh …” Holden moans, rocking back against the gentle massage. “Yes …”

Bill hums a soft reply, and pokes one finger inside. 

“Fuck.” Holden whimpers, stiffening against the sudden penetration. 

He forces his muscles to unwind and lean back into it as Bill pumps his finger in and out, the pace still slow and lazy, but the penetration going down to the knuckle each time. In no time at all, he’s accepting the depth with little resistance, and rocking back against it in a desperate search for more.

“God, Bill-” He moans, feeling his cock twitch with desperate need. 

Bill’s finger slides out of him, and Holden feels the resulting quiver of muscle reeling from the sudden lack of stimulation. He trembles, suffering a full-bodied shiver, when hot breath spills across the slick opening. Going still, he waits breathlessly until Bill’s mouth touches him again, practiced and deliberate. 

Bracing a hand against Holden’s lower back, Bill holds him still while his tongue devises long, slow stripes and grinding circles against the puckered opening. Holden’s shivering and whimpering seem to only encourage the steady, determined pace, the unerring deftness that’s quickly building arousal toward the breaking point. 

“Oh my god …” Holden whines, his back snapping into taut arch as Bill’s tongue pauses, hardens, then slips into him. His hips start to move of their own volition, eagerly rocking back against the slick, shallow penetration, urging the aching, swelling arousal that’s surging to the precipice of pleasure. He can’t think straight to pace himself or try to ease the arousal careening through him; he can only beg for more, thrusting into Bill’s tongue, panting, “Yes, yes …”

Bill’s tongue retreats abruptly, and Holden gasps in a staggered breath. His eyes roll open to the flickering darkness that allows him bare, white snippets of Bill’s mouth hovering over his raised, trembling backside. In one flash, he glimpses the string of saliva stretching from Bill’s lips to his hole; in the subsequent darkness, he feels two fingers massaging him open and slipping inside. 

His mouth stretches open in a hollow cry as the pressure increases abruptly. When the paired fingers breach him, the strangled sound erupts from his throat in a high-pitched whimper. The firm tips of Bill’s fingers curl down against his budding prostate, and that mangled noise elongates into a clipped shout of pleasure as white, as bright as the lighting cutting up the sky, bleaches the back of his eyelids.

“Jesus, fuck-” Holden groans, hanging onto the pillow with trembling fingers. 

Bill grinds his fingers inside as his other hand slips between Holden’s trembling thighs to find his cock rock hard and dripping with arousal. 

“Bill, please, wait …” Holden moans, arching away from the gentle, grazing friction of Bill’s palm along his shaft. “Oh God, I’m gonna cum-”

Bill’s fist curls around his cock, pumping him, milking it out of him while his fingers circle Holden’s prostate from the inside. 

“Oh, fuck!” Holden chokes out just before his body seizes with the hot flash of climax. 

He comes hard, so hard that stars burst behind his eyelids and every muscle clamps for twenty seconds straight, threatening to cramp permanently into that position. He feels it gush out of him, hot burst after slick, hot burst of release dampening the sheets; and all he can do is lie helplessly beneath the paired ministrations of Bill’s hands, crying that he hadn’t meant to come right away. 

Bill soothes him with kisses rained down the back of his neck as Holden sinks down against the sheets into a shuddering heap of boneless limbs. His body is a warm, grounding weight against Holden’s back, half-lying on top of him and making it difficult to ignore his erection trapped against Holden’s cleft. 

“Why did you do that?” Holden whispers, groaning quietly into the pillows. “I gave you the ten-second warning.”

“Calm down.” Bill replies, unperturbed, running a pair of fingers down Holden’s bare back. “I’m still going to fuck you.”

Holden blinks his eyes open to the half-darkness that flickers with lightning. He twists under Bill’s weight, and Bill leans back to let him roll over. 

With Holden on his back, gazing up at him, Bill settles down against his side with his elbow propped under him. He traces Holden’s blushing cheek with his thumb, and bends to drop a soft kiss against his lower lip. 

“Am I going to come again, too?” Holden murmurs. 

“Yes.”

A hitched breath catches in the back of his throat. “Fuck...”

“As many times I can make you.” Bill adds. His eyes are like white fire in the knife-slash of lightning past the drapes. 

Holden presses a hand over his eyes, dizzy with a rush of need. 

Bill kisses him on his raw, bruised nipples, his shuddering chest, the wild throb of his pulse at his throat. The scrape of his stubble burns Holden’s earlobe, and the rush of his breath is a hot wind tunneling into the canal that makes shivers run rampant down Holden’s body. 

“I want you just like this …” Bill whispers, low. “Drained, weak, helpless - over and over again.”

Holden shudders, his mouth drifting open. 

Pulling back, Bill kisses his lax lips before stopping to look him in the eyes. “For all the times I didn’t. For every single fucking time I wanted to, but I was stupid enough to let the moment pass me by.”

Holden kisses him before he can go on, tears suddenly hot against his eyelids. At the same time, his body is tingling with fresh need, and his belly is on fire. He wraps his arms around Bill’s neck, and pulls him closer, between his thighs. Their mouths fracture apart, and he’s whispering, deliriously, demandingly, “Make love to me. Make love to me.”

Bill kisses him once more before he can say it again, and while their mouths are tangling, he reaches over to retrieve the Vaseline from the drawer of the nightstand. 

Holden hangs onto Bill’s lower lip until it pulls free, and Bill pushes up onto his elbow to smear the glaze of Vaseline across his cock and against Holden’s opening. He guides the blunt tip up against Holden’s body where it rubs and grinds in a needy circle before wasting no more time pushing inside. 

The sky lights up, and Holden sees their bodies joining in the bleached flare. He can hardly hear the roll of thunder above his own percussive heartbeat, the rush of need building to a cacophony inside his skull. Feeling the singe of Bill’s gaze, he looks up into the swallowing stare; and he’s blinded, paralyzed, and thrilling. There is no resistance in Bill’s eyes, no lingering shame, no holding back. They have a light all their own, a warmth that Holden wants to live inside tonight, if not every night after this one. 

Bill leans down and gathers Holden in his arms; together, they rock against one another until tempered, determined desires meld into unraveled needs, into a desperate ache, into a burning friction that keeps building and building, and they’re both moaning into fragmented kisses - moaning like they can’t take it any longer. 

Holden hangs on as long as he can, not for the sake of his pride, but for the simple feeling of their bodies fusing into one, the touch of their fingertips cutting down past flesh and bone, bare eyes meeting with the gentle violence of being seen and looking back with nothing standing in between. He doesn’t know if tomorrow will bring more pain as he’d suggested, predicted, or anticipated, but for right now, nothing but the feeling of Bill’s body cradling his own could possibly matter. 

***

In the night, the storm passes. When Bill’s heavy eyelids crawl open the next morning, fresh yellow sunlight cuts in blades past the edges of the drapes to stripe the bed in clement illumination. 

Holden is still fast asleep, sprawled out on his back. In the daylight, the evidence of their lovemaking is obscenely clear in the scattering of hickeys down his neck and chest and the faint row of scratches on his side. He came four times. 

Bill pushes up onto his elbow, but stops his reaching fingers from touching the uncombed hair draping Holden’s forehead. He hasn’t quite addressed all of his emotions about last night. It’s probably best not to wake Holden before he’s had a chance to reevaluate. Knowing Holden, the questions will be coming the moment he's even half-aware.

Creeping out of bed as quietly as he can, Bill gathers up Holden's discarded, half-damp clothes from their pile on the floor. He finds the trench coat in the living room. Everything smells musty from the rainwater. 

He takes the clothes and some towels - he has none clean in the bathroom - and puts it all into the washing machine. Then he goes to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. 

Standing over the kitchen sink, he lights a cigarette, and looks out into the backyard where the verdant lawn glistens from the rain. The darkness is gone, and the sky is clear blue except for a few errant, white clouds. It’s like the universe is telling him today could be a fresh start, but he knows it can’t be that easy. 

Once the coffee is done brewing, he takes a steaming mug out onto the patio with his pack of cigarettes, and sits down at the picnic table. Listening to cheerful call of birds and the wind in the trees, he tries to think through his dilemma logically, but logic doesn’t come easily with the memory of Holden underneath him, coming undone, plastered across the back of his mind. 

He’s done nothing more than rehash the breath-taking details of their lovemaking before he hears the door behind him squeak open. 

Bill looks over his shoulder to see Holden standing on the patio in a t-shirt and boxer shorts that he recognizes as his own, both of them a little baggy and sagging on Holden’s smaller frame. 

“Good morning.” Bill says. 

“Morning.” 

“Want some coffee?”

Holden shakes his head, and wraps his arms around his middle. His expression is somber yet curious, evaluating Bill’s posture and behavior with silent intensity. 

Bill nods for him to come closer, and holds out his hand. 

Holden hesitates only a moment before walking across the patio to the picnic table. 

“I hope you don’t mind.” He says, tugging on the hem of the faded, Philly Eagles t-shirt. “I couldn’t find any of my clothes.”

“I put them in the washer. And no, I don’t mind.”

Holden smiles faintly, and scans the yard. “It’s a beautiful day.”

“Yeah. Here, sit down with me.” Bill says, tugging on his wrist. 

Holden climbs onto the bench beside him, and Bill slips an arm around his shoulders. Much to his relief, Holden willingly nestles his head down against his shoulder. 

Taking a sip of his coffee, Bill draws in a steadying breath. For a long minute, they sit huddled together in silence listening to the birdsong and the breeze. 

“What are you going to do?” Holden asks, finally. 

Bill takes a drag of his cigarette, scoffing from the back of his throat. 

Holden lifts his head, and casts him a penetrating stare. “I thought we should cut right to the point.”

“Yeah, probably.”

Holden braces his elbows on the picnic table, and rests his chin on his clasped knuckles. His gaze is unwavering, waiting for Bill to speak. 

“I don’t think I can renege on the teaching position.” Bill says, “Even if I could, it wouldn’t be very professional.”

Holden’s mouth purses against a twinge of disappointment, but he agrees softly, “You’re probably right.”

“Logistics aside, I’m not sure if I would want to.”

Holden frowns. 

“When I said this decision wasn’t all about us it wasn’t a lie.” Bill says, flicking a glance over to Holden’s curious stare. “It is about me - my issues. I need a fucking break. I’ve been running on fumes for months now, and I’m not sure how much good I am to anyone at the BSU right now.”

Holden nods, and Bill can tell he’s trying to be valiant. 

“Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed.” He says, drawing a deep breath. “You’re leaving me to do interviews with Gregg.”

Bill chuckles. “That’s the worst of it, huh?”

“No.” Holden says, curtly, despite the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “No, it’s … it’s the idea of not seeing you everyday at work.”

Bill tentatively lays a hand over Holden’s knuckles, and squeezes gently. 

“Hey, just because I leave for a few months doesn’t mean I can’t come back.” 

“What are the chances, though? Seventy percent? Fifty, thirty?”

“I don’t know. I have to figure things out. Re-evaluate.”

They both fall silent again. Bill can sense the thoughts turning in Holden’s mind. He retrieves his hand as the thought that this isn’t the hardest conversation they’re going to have this morning crosses his mind. Neither of them have to say it out loud to wonder:  _ where are they going from here?  _

“Holden,” Bill says, quietly. 

Holden is quick to look back over at him. 

“I don’t want to make promises to you I can’t keep. Last night was incredible, but-”

“I know. I gave you an ultimatum.” Holden says, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have let myself get so swept up in my emotions, and-”

“I’m not blaming you. I’m blaming myself.”

Holden pauses, his eyes softening. “For last night?”

“Yeah. And a lot of other nights, too. For hurting you the way I have. I don’t know if there’s anything I can say to you that would make it right again. There’s no excuse for the things I’ve said and done, I just …”

Holden waits patiently as Bill squints at the morning sunlight spilling over the tops of the trees, and feels his throat knot unbearably with horrible guilt. 

“I thought-” He begins, again, trying to sound strong as he clears his throat, “I thought it would be best if I left because then I wouldn’t be able to hurt you again.”

“Well, you’re wrong. The thought of you leaving and me never seeing you again  _ does  _ hurt.”

“I don’t know how you can say that.” Bill says, gazing in bewilderment at Holden’s soft, pleading eyes. “I’m fucking lucky that you’re even here right now because I don’t really know how to be with you. Before last year, I didn’t think I could be with another man romantically. I thought it was just something I did in secret when the urges became too much to deal with on my own. I didn’t think it could be like this - like last night was. But …”

“But what?” Holden whispers, his voice barely audible. His eyes are shimmering.

Bill swallows hard, extending his hand to stroke Holden’s cheek. “Christ, I … I don’t know how to be without you either.”

Holden leans into the caress, his eyes pressing shut against a tremulous sigh. “Bill-”

Drawing him closer, Bill imparts a slow yet resolute kiss on his mouth. Holden moans softly, parting his lips to the deep, needy strokes. Tongues graze softly, barely tasting, mostly leaving the press of lips to translate aching desires. 

When Bill pulls back, the rich, cornflower blue of Holden’s eyes peeks in glazed, lovelorn delirium from beneath faintly damp eyelashes. 

“We don’t have to figure it all out today.” Holden murmurs, his voice low and mottled with emotion. “Just tell me you’re not giving up.”

“No, I’m not. I want to try, too.”

Holden nods, his eyes momentarily pressing shut against a burst of relief.

Bill kisses him again, planting his mouth desperately over Holden’s lips, his cheek, the warm crook of his neck. Holden turns to pull him closer, until they’re clinging to each other in silence, and Bill is smothering his rising emotions into the safety of Holden's throat.

A rift of terror cuts through his chest. The future looms massively, darkly unseen, holding all the possibilities - both good and ill - in the world. For the first time in a long time, he lets himself feel that weak quiver of vulnerability, lets his fists uncurl, lets destiny pull him strongly down the more difficult path. If Holden’s arms never let him go, it might not be as frightening as he thinks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite chapter of the entire fic! I'm excited to hear your thoughts on this one, and a little nervous considering all of the emotional build-up to this moment. I hope it's what everyone wanted and hoped for. Can't wait to round this fic out with the next chapter and get everyone's complete thoughts on it as a whole 💛


	9. learning to live

**December, 1980**

**Fredericksburg, Virginia**

In the beginning of December, the divorce is finalized. Bill gets a much-needed break from his teaching duties for the holidays while Holden is whisked away to colder temperatures in Minnesota on consult for the case of three murdered women. 

While he’s away, Bill tries to keep himself busy around his apartment. The house he and Nancy once shared was sold in the divorce proceedings, divided up and sorted out like the rest of their possessions. He’s still trying to adjust to mostly living alone between Brian's visits, and maintaining what can, at times, feel like a long distance relationship with Holden; but both of them have been so busy with their jobs that he hasn’t slowed down long enough until now to consider just how empty the house feels when Holden isn’t coming over to visit every other night. 

He’s relieved when Holden calls after just a week out of town to say that he’s coming home. 

“How about you come here for the weekend?” Bill suggests, plain in his eagerness to see Holden again. 

“That sounds like a good idea.” Holden replies, his voice giddy through the static in the telephone line. 

They discuss the details and times of his flight before hanging up. 

Bill leans against the kitchen counter, and glances around the shadowed corners of the apartment. The dull ache in his chest compounds even though he’s happy Holden will be home soon. 

Despite their honesty with one another after that night in August, Bill has been wrangling with his emotions ever since. The fact that he’s in a gay relationship doesn’t feel good. He’s accepted it, but he isn’t proud of it. The words  _ I love you  _ don’t taste as sweet in his mouth as they should because they’re always soured by the ever-present flinch of ingrained disgust in the back of his mind. 

_ It’s okay. This isn’t going to hurt.  _ When will those words stop overwhelming and suffocating the ones he really feels? Sometimes, waiting for that wound to heal looks to be an eternal work in progress, never completed, always aching. 

Bill lights a cigarette, and tries to smother his conflicted thoughts with a bout of nicotine. 

Later that day, as he’s driving to the airport to pick Holden up, the dogged ruminations continue to haunt him. He knows when he lays eyes on Holden again, he’ll be flushed with a sense of relief; for a little while, everything will feel okay again, but he hates the dread that hovers in the back of his mind, the concept that he’s only ever one step away from ruining what they have with his disjointed heart. 

Bill waits by the gate for less than ten minutes before passengers begin their exodus toward baggage claim. He watches nervously as couples and families meet, exchanging hugs and kisses in open displays of love and affection. 

When Holden emerges from the crowd, Bill feels that familiar, safe warmth in his chest. 

“Hi,” Holden says, his mouth stretching into a smile as he reaches Bill. 

“Hey.”

Bill hesitates for a moment before pulling Holden into an embrace. 

“Oh.” Holden whispers against his ear, surprise rippling through the muted exclamation. 

Bill squeezes him tightly. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” Holden whispers, returning the hug. 

When they break apart, Bill glances around at the other passengers, but no one seems to have noticed or cared how intimate the embrace was. 

“Let’s go home.” He says, managing an even tone. 

They pick up Holden’s suitcase from baggage claim, and head back out into the winter chill to where Bill parked. Once they’re on the road toward home, Bill glances over at Holden’s windswept cheeks and tired eyes. 

“How was it?” He asks. 

“Not bad. Quick, so I can’t complain.” 

“You look beat.”

“Mm, yeah.” Holden murmurs, sinking down lower in the seat. 

He reaches over to worm his fingers in between Bill’s, and holds on tightly for the rest of the trip home. Bill doesn’t press him for details on the conclusion of the case, certain he’ll hear more about it once Holden has gotten some rest. 

When they get home, Bill takes Holden’s luggage from him. 

“I’ll get this in the laundry.” He says, as they take their snow-crusted shoes off by the door. 

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind. Are you hungry?”

“Not right now.” Holden says, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on the hook by the door. “I think I’ll get a shower and take a nap before dinner.”

“Sounds good.” 

“Thanks.” Holden drops a chaste kiss on his cheek before shuffling down the hall to the bathroom. 

Bill stands by the door for a long moment after he hears the bathroom door swing shut and the shower turn on. It’s always a bit jarring, how domestic and normal being with Holden in this apartment seems. When he’d come home to find every room of the old house empty all those months ago, he’d thought he would never feel that sense of belonging again. But here they are - he could be happy, happier than ever, if he would only let himself. 

Bill puts all of Holden’s clothes from the suitcase into the washing machine as he had promised before slouching on the couch and turning on the television. Late afternoon sitcoms and weather reports display in lazy neons and pastels, a faint distraction to the winding path of his thoughts. He lights a cigarette, and tunes out the weather channel’s prediction of more snowfall and dropping temperatures for the week before Christmas. 

Fifteen minutes later, he hears the shower turn off. The bathroom door creaks open a short time after that, and Holden enters the living room with a towel tucked low around his waist. 

Bill stubs out his cigarette as Holden draws closer. His hair is wet and dripping thick, fast droplets down his neck to his chest where pale skin prickles with goosebumps - and lower to where his belly quivers just above the loose folds of the towel. A coy smile ghosts the corners of his mouth as his teeth pinch at his lower lip, and his eyelids hang in a sultry gaze. 

“I thought you were going to bed.” Bill says. 

Holden stops right in front of him, fingers tugging playfully at the towel. “I was.”

“But …?” Bill murmurs, shifting forward to the edge of the couch, and running his knuckles along Holden’s damp side. 

“I realized how much I missed you.” 

Holden drops the towel from his waist, and his half-hard cock rises from the confines to rest directly in front of Bill’s mouth. 

“Fuck, Holden.” Bill curses. 

He drags Holden in by the hip, and plants a row of hungry kisses down his quivering belly and into the damp, clean-smelling pubic hair. His other hand surges up to fondle Holden’s ballsack before curling around his rapidly swelling cock. He stokes it gently for a long moment, monitoring Holden's aroused expression, before fitting his mouth over the tip. 

“Ohhh.” Holden moans, clutching at Bill’s shoulder to steady himself. 

Bill hums a pleased sound into the hard, throbbing shaft rubbing against his tongue, and watches as Holden’s face tenses with pleasure. He sucks up and down, applying lazy pressure and lathering Holden in hot saliva, until Holden groans, arching his hips away from the ministration quickly pushing him to the edge. 

Bill rises to his feet, smothering the aroused whimpers tumbling from Holden’s lips with a hard kiss. Holden’s spit-slick cock fits in his palm, and he curls his fingers tightly around it, jerking it harder than what his mouth had offered. 

Holden pulls his mouth free from Bill’s viscous kiss, and casts him a plaintive stare. 

“God, I want you to fuck me.” He moans, his eyes slipping back as Bill’s hand persistently strokes him. “Please …”

Bill leans in to kiss Holden’s earlobe and neck, and breath spills hotly against his cheek. 

“Bend me over, and fuck me so hard.” Holden whispers, raggedly.

Bill’s heart thunders with need, and his face flushes hot. Well-tread humiliation quickly falls far below instinctive desires, and he can’t take even a minute to wonder at how easily Holden can make him forget everything but this with the slightest touch. 

He stops touching Holden long enough to take him by the wrist and lead him down the hallway to the bedroom. When they reach the bed, he drags Holden around in front of him, channeling whatever resistance is left inside of him into manhandling Holden the way he’d pleaded for. 

Holden moans out his appreciation as Bill forces him down to the bed on his face. He drags his knees under himself, and arches his hips up in the air in an obscene display of need. His cock hangs thick and hard between his spread thighs, deep pink and still faintly damp with saliva.

Bill grabs the Vaseline from the drawer, and quickly uncaps the jar to dip his fingers inside. He uses a generous glob of the lubricant to oil the length of Holden’s cleft, then pushes his index inside. 

“Oh my god-” Holden groans, his fingers tearing at the sheets as Bill pumps his hand. “Yes, like that …”

Pressing closer, Bill uses his other hand to unzip his trousers. He nudges the fabric out of the way, allowing his cock to spring free. He’s almost fully hard, need building with every second of Holden moaning and twitching beneath him. 

He pairs a second finger with a first, and bites back a pleased smile as Holden shudders then opens up to him. 

Holden whines, ass straining eagerly back against the mounting pressure. 

Bill steadily finger-fucks him for several more moments, giving Holden’s body the opportunity to prepare for his cock while also enjoying the way it trembles and quivers around the persistent violation of fingers. 

“Bill, please …” Holden moans, breathlessly. He squirms against Bill’s pumping fingers, nails clawing helplessly at the bedsheets. “Hurry …”

Bill retrieves his fingers, and uses more of the Vaseline to slick his cock. Clutching Holden’s ass cheek in his left hand, he directs his cock to the opening with the right. 

Holden's frantic trembling stills as Bill’s cockhead slowly breaches him, pushing back against the faint resistance of quivering muscles. 

“Ohh,  _ fuck. _ ” He groans, his back arching sharply against the penetration. “Jesus, Bill-”

Bill clasps Holden’s hips in both hands, and guides him gradually onto his cock. A staggered breath escapes his lungs as he watches his cock tunnel inside, purposefully stretching Holden’s rosy pink rim, filling him all the way down to the hilt. 

“Fuck.” He mutters, stroking a hand down Holden’s shivering spine. “That’s good.” 

Holden whimpers into the bed sheets as a few gentle, searching thrusts of Bill’s hips have their bodies fusing together at the deepest point. He turns his chin against his shoulder so that he can look back at Bill poised above him, chest shuddering with exhilarated breaths while the thrusts build. 

“Fuck me, fuck me …” Holden whispers, eyes slipping open and shut as each thrust hits deep to the core. 

Bill stifles a groan in the back of his throat. His body flushes hot beneath Holden’s erotic encouragement; he can’t help but obey, can’t help but ache with fully compromised desires as Holden’s asshole sucks his cock down. 

He picks up his pace to Holden’s delight. As their bodies begin to slap together, Holden’s mouth stretches open in a strangled, high-pitched cry of pleasure, and his fists go white-knuckled around the bunched duvet. He thrusts back against Bill’s cock, taking every impact with a pleased cry and panting for more. 

It doesn't take much of this quick, thorough pace for Bill to feel the clench of muscles and the wash of tingles building in his belly. He slows down, trying to brace himself with a few deep breaths. 

“Don’t stop.” Holden whines, casting a pout over his shoulder. 

Bill pulls out completely, and flips Holden over onto his back before he can start to complain again. Crawling onto the bed between Holden’s legs, Bill grabs him by the ankles and drapes them over his shoulders. Holden’s heels immediately lock against the top of his chest as his cock finds its way back inside and begins thrusting from this new angle. 

“Oh, yes!” Holden cries out, his head tilting back and his neck stretching open in glorious satisfaction. 

Bill clutches him by the backside, and lifts him up to meet the steady thrusting of his hips. Holden lays helplessly within the powerful grasp, feet curling and pushing against Bill’s shoulders through every deep, hard fusion of their bodies, back arching with intense waves of pleasure. His cock twitches against his belly, a deep pink, ready to come with the right touch. 

“Fuck,” Bill pants, catching Holden’s eyes as they feverishly slip open. “Wanna see you come … come on my cock right now.”

Holden’s mouth trembles open in an aroused gasp. He reaches down to grab his cock, and his expression pinches off into one of immense pleasure. 

“That’s it.” Bill urges. 

Jerking eagerly at his cock, Holden goes still in Bill’s grasp until the pleasure breaks open in deep, hard spasms. 

Bill feels Holden’s hole clamp around him with shivers of orgasm as he comes, his cock gushing milky white rivers across his heaving belly and chest. The sight of him impaled on Bill’s cock and wrecked with orgasm is enough to make the simmering pleasure in Bill’s own belly erupt with unstoppable force. 

He pulls out and grabs onto his leaking cock just before the climax cripples him. He comes across Holden’s stomach, adding his own thick, wet cum to the mess dribbling across Holden’s soft, pale skin. 

When it’s over, he sinks back on his heels to catch his breath. 

Holden gazes up at him, a lazy smile curling the corner of his mouth. 

“Is that what you wanted?” Bill asks. 

“Yes.” Holden says, smile growing. “Fuck, I love your cock.”

Bill climbs off the bed to find a washcloth before Holden can see how hot his face is getting. In the bathroom, he runs a rag under warm water, and avoids his reflection in the mirror. His chest feels too giddy to be attaching reality to this moment, but that encounter - hotter and more satisfying than anything he’s ever had before - happened to him. It did, no debating that, but it doesn’t quite feel plausible yet. 

When he comes back to the bed, Holden tucks his hands behind his head while Bill wipes him down. His eyes are already slipping shut. 

“Tired now?” Bill asks, gently rolling him onto his side so that he can clean the smeared Vaseline from his backside. 

“Mm. Mhmm.” Holden mumbles. 

“All right.” Bill whispers, bending to kiss him on the temple. “Get some rest.”

***

Holden wakes in fading daylight, the fixtures of the bedroom draped in a murky gray that could have indicated dawn or dusk. His limbs feel heavy as if sedated, but the acute exhaustion he’d come home with after running himself ragged in Minnesota for a week straight is all but eliminated. He slips his eyes open to peek at the clock. It’s almost eight. 

Feeling a gaze lining the back of his skull, Holden rolls over onto his back to see Bill propped up against the pillows beside him with a book in his lap. He has his reading glasses on, but he isn’t paying attention to the words on the page. 

“Hi.” Holden whispers, his voice hoarse from the three-hour nap. 

“Hey.” Bill takes off his glasses, and sets them on the nightstand along with the book. “Feeling better?”

Holden nods, suppressing a yawn with his knuckles. 

Bill sinks down onto his elbow, and presses a kiss to Holden’s forehead. 

Holden closes his eyes as the gesture lingers, Bill’s breath staggering against his hairline. The seconds carry weight, heavier than the drape of dreams, the kind of silence that comes before honesty. He can always sense Bill’s moods, but this one doesn’t feel quite mercurial as they often are - just fragile, frightened like a trapped animal. 

“What’s wrong?” 

Bill draws back, frown flickering on his brow. “Hmm?”

“Something’s wrong. I can tell.”

Bill’s gaze cuts away. In the semi-darkness his eyes are no more than the glitter of stars, his mouth a narrow, stubborn slash. 

Holden waits, combing through the last few hours and days in his mind for the genesis of this specific mood. The sex they had before he fell asleep was the dirty, rough kind that they used to have when their affair was at full, hedonistic blaze. Every other encounter the past few months has been tender and slow, as if they were relearning each other's bodies and needs from a foundation of love rather than lust, but Holden hadn’t been able to stop himself today. He’d wanted it exactly the way he’d asked for it. Now he wonders if it has something to do with this silence. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot.” Bill says, at length. 

Holden rolls onto his side so that he can look directly up at Bill. “About what?”

“This. You and me. Mostly me.”

Holden tentatively reaches out to touch Bill’s chest, a quietly offered reassurance.

“That night, you said you didn’t care what I’d been through.” Bill says, fingers winding softly around Holden’s knuckles. “If I told you or not …”

Holden draws in a hitched breath. His heart is suddenly pounding. 

“I’ve never told anyone. Well, no one living, at least.”

“Not even Nancy?”

“No.”

Holden eases closer to Bill, hoping to show whatever support he can with the steady warmth of his body. 

“Fuck.” Bill mutters, lowering his head and pressing his eyes shut. “I’m not sure if I can …”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to.”

“That’s the problem.” Bill says, his eyes snapping open. “I do have to, Holden. I  _ need  _ to, before I let it destroy this.”

Holden's pulse spikes. He’s had a theory of Bill’s secret for quite some time, but he’d never imagined Bill freely telling him. As much as he wants to believe their relationship would be fine leaving it buried, he knows Bill is right. 

“God, I’ve-” Bill says, shaking his head. “I’ve let this fester long enough.”

“Here,” Holden whispers, turning his hand in Bill’s grasp so that their fingers can entwine. “Hold my hand.”

Bill fingers curl over his knuckles, squeezing so tightly that it aches. He draws Holden’s hand to his mouth, and presses a kiss to the back of his wrist. His breathing ripples in fragmented gusts across Holden’s skin as the seconds slip by in stifled silence. 

Holden keeps his mouth clamped shut. He has to let the truth come out on its own, even if it takes all night. 

Bill clears his throat, and lifts his head.

“You, um … you were right.” He says, voice trembling in the darkness, “That night I told you my mother was with a lot of different abusive men, and you asked if they … if I-”

“I remember.” Holden whispers, softly. 

Bill nods. “Okay. I was about thirteen, fourteen maybe … I’m not sure, but, uh- my mother, she was dating this guy named Fred. We were living with him. They had met at church, and he always had an interest in me. Seemed like a decent guy. He took me fishing just like my dad used to.”

Holden draws in a hitched breath as nausea begins to gradually churn in his belly. He can already anticipate where this story is going, but part of him wants to turn away and plug his ears to escape the fact that it really happened. 

Bill’s fingers tighten around his knuckles before he draws in a steadying breath. 

“We were living with him for close to a year before I … Before I started having an  _ inkling _ of what his interests were. I was just a kid, you know, but I’d seen a lot. The more time we spent together, the more I started to realize he’d rather hang out with me than my mom - and even as an attention-starved kid, that didn’t make much sense to me. I tried to ignore it because he was giving me and my mom a good life. Before she met him, we were barely making ends meet so I thought- … I thought I shouldn’t ruin it.”

Another beat of silence. Bill sounds far too calm for the story he’s recounting. 

“So, it went on for another few months. He would buy me things. Gifts. There was a watch, a pocket knife, more toys than I could ever remember having in my life. Nobody had treated me like that so I took it all in, didn’t complain. Then one day, we were … My mom was out - I don’t remember where, shopping maybe. It was just me and Fred at home. I was watching television. He came into the room …”

Bill’s voice falters, and Holden adjusts his grasp on his hand. Their palms are sweating against one another. The acrid taste of horror stings the back of his throat. 

“Sat down next me.” Bill presses on, his voice growing staggered and raspy. “He put his hand on my knee - very slowly, you know, like he’d thought out his approach. I can remember to this day how he smelled when he leaned really close. It was hot as hell that day, and he was always chewing tobacco.” 

Bill pauses, drawing in a shaky breath. 

Holden can’t look away from his eyes, their cutting focus and shimmering pain shrouded by the shadows. 

“So, he um …” Bill says, clearing his throat, “He moved his hand up farther, and touched me. I was paralyzed for a minute, thinking this wasn’t happening. Then I started pulling away. My dad had always taught me not to let anyone else lay their hands on me without putting up a fight. So I fought, but he was a lot bigger than me and determined. He pinned me down, and - I can remember it clearly - he said, ‘Calm down. It’s okay. This isn’t going to hurt.’”

Holden presses his eyes shut, feeling the hot sting of tears. He wants to be sick at the thought of this despicable man not only abusing a child, but the love of his life. 

“This isn’t going to hurt.” Bill repeats, his voice dropping to a harsh scoff. “Fucking Christ. What an evil fucking bastard. I was just a kid. I was just a defenseless kid who spent  _ years  _ hating myself for something that wasn’t even my fault, that he- that he …”

Holden pushes up from the sheets to pull Bill into his arms as his voice crumbles. 

Bill doesn’t resist. He buries his face in Holden’s chest, and wraps both arms around his waist. 

Holden cradles him in his arms for a long time, listening to Bill’s staggered breathing, feeling his blood surge hot with commiserating rage. If he’d ever clung to any resentment towards Bill over the way their relationship had crested and crashed and risen again, the last of it melts away beneath this righteous sympathy. All he wants now is to go back in time and stop the abuse from ever happening. 

After a while, Bill slowly emerges from Holden’s embrace. He lifts his head to brush a languid kiss to the corner of Holden’s mouth. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” He murmurs, tracing Holden’s cheek where vagrant tears are dribbling. 

“It’s not okay.” Holden whispers, “God, Bill. That man should be dead, sent to the electric chair. Nobody should have to go through that.”

“Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Yes.” Holden whispers, pressing kisses to Bill’s cheek, and fiercely wrapping both arms around his neck. “You’re here with me now.”

Bill pats his back, and utters a quiet, relieved laugh. “Thank God for that.” 

***

The rest of the story comes out slowly over the next few weeks. Bill reveals more in little remarks before eventually, one night while they’re eating dinner, he sets his fork and knife down, and announces that Holden should just ask whatever questions he wants because he’d rather have it all out and over with rather than hide the smallest secret any longer. Holden hesitantly asks if he’s sure. Bill answers with a resolute yes. 

After they finish eating and move to the couch with two glasses of scotch, Holden asks, “You said you told your mom?”

“Yes.”

“Right away?”

Bill takes a sip of his whiskey, and shakes his head. “No, though I wish I had. I didn’t work up the courage until six months later after, you know … It happened again - and again.”

Holden nods, glancing down into the amber of his whiskey. “How did she take it?”

“She was shocked, of course.” Bill says, “But she was a good mom - she believed me. She got us out of there as soon as she could.” 

“That’s good. I think a lot of mothers might not want to believe it.”

“She didn’t exactly have a lot of faith in humanity. Besides, their relationship was already breaking up, and I think it finally all made sense to her.”

“I couldn’t imagine.” Holden says, sinking back against the couch cushions with a sigh, “Realizing the man you were dating was molesting your son ….”

Bill’s jaw ripples with tension. He never calls it what it was.  _ Molestation. Rape. Sexual assault.  _ Maybe it’s too hard to say those words still. 

“I couldn’t imagine trying to figure out my sexuality after that kind of experience either.” Holden adds, softening his tone. "I know it was hard enough for me, and I never had to endure anything like that."

Bill takes another sip of his whiskey, and tilts his head in acknowledgement. He doesn’t offer any further comment, though, and Holden doesn’t push the subject. Three and a half decades later, that subject is still raw, he thinks. 

It isn’t until a week later when they’re laying in bed together that Bill suddenly rolls over and pulls him into a tight embrace. 

“What is it?” Holden asks, half-asleep and startled by the abrupt contact. 

“Nothing.” Bill mutters, kissing his neck. The assurance is then quickly followed by, “I love you. I just want you to know that.”

“I do.” Holden whispers, reassuringly rubbing Bill’s back. 

“And I’m thankful for you.” Bill continues, his breath warm against Holden’s earlobe. “You have no idea how relieved I am that I told you, and you … you’ve never once judged me.”

“Why would I judge you? You were a kid - defenseless, like you said.”

“Well, I was then.” Bill says, leaning back to look into Holden’s eyes. “I’m a grown man now. What excuse do I have for all the things I’ve put you through?”

“Bill, we’ve studied this for years now. We both know what trauma does to people. It makes you do things you never would have considered before. It makes you feel shame and guilt and anger. I can’t judge you for that.”

“Okay. Fine. I’m fucked up, then; but I pulled you into my issues when you didn’t even have a clue what they were.”

“What if I said I forgive you?” Holden asks, gently cradling Bill’s cheek. “That I forgive you one hundred times over? That I love you more than anything, and I couldn’t imagine my life without you?”

“Jesus-” Bill says, giving a choked laugh, “I’d tell you to stop being such a fucking sap.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously.” Bill says, though his tone is already dropping into amusement. 

He leans in to plant a sloppy kiss on Holden’s mouth before pulling them down against the pillows. They snuggle together quietly for several moments before Holden opens his eyes to the ceiling in the dark. His heart feels entirely unburdened for the first time in a long while. 

“Seriously.” He repeats, clutching Bill’s arm tightly across his chest. “I love you that much. Maybe more.”

There’s only a beat of silence before Bill whispers, “Me, too.” 

***

**May, 1981**

**Quantico, Virginia**

  
  


Bill sees out his Academy position until Spring graduation before admitting to both himself and Holden that Holden had been right from the beginning - he hates teaching; only this time, he decides he’s done accepting things for the way they are. 

The day that he walks back into the BSU basement office, the whole unit stops what they’re doing to applaud. Holden is the first to leap up from his desk and give him a long hug for all of their co-workers to see. 

A lot changed in the short year that Bill was gone. The office arrangements, for one, had taken on a new configuration. As a senior member of the department, Holden had moved over to the larger annex, but had never allowed anyone to take the vacant office beside him. It already had a plaque with Bill’s name on it beside the door when he arrived. 

With new staff to help with the interviews, Holden is dedicating more time to taking on consults while assisting Wendy in formulating the data in between trips. They both welcome the additional help to meet the publication deadline. When Bill reviews all of the transcripts of the interviews that had occurred during his absence, he feels a bittersweet twinge of regret in his chest. Though he needed to take the time off for his own mental health, he’d missed a lot of important developments in the research. 

His first full day back, Wendy raps on his door at 4:30 with a bottle of scotch in her hand. 

“Hey,” He says, motioning her inside, “What do you have there?”

“Oh, just a little welcome back present.” She says, shutting the door behind her. “I wanted the opportunity to give it to you in private.”

“Thanks.” Bill says, accepting the bottle from her outstretched hand. He reads the label and scoffs a laugh, “Jesus, Wendy. You didn’t have to go to this much trouble. This is the good stuff.”

“It’s no trouble.” Wendy says, taking the chair across from him. “It’s good to have you back.”

Bill returns her affectionate smile before holding up the bottle. “What do you say we crack this open?”

She spreads her hands. “Why not?”

Bill retrieves two paper cups from the breakroom, and uses his pocket knife corkscrew to open the bottle. As the cork pops off, he takes a whiff of the sharp, fermented scent. 

“That  _ is _ the good stuff.” He remarks. 

“Only the best for the best.” Wendy says, taking her cup from him. 

“Well, to be honest, I’m not sure I quite deserve it.” Bill says, easing down into the chair next to her. “When I first left, Holden accused me of abandoning the study. He wasn’t completely wrong.”

“You had your reasons.”

“I appreciate your support.” Bill says, lifting his cup to hers. “And your discretion.”

She casts him a faint smile. “How are you two doing?”

“Good. Better.” Bill says, nodding, “Just don’t tell him I told you yet. I think it might freak him out to know someone outside of the two of us is savvy on our relationship.” 

“I’m glad you trust me. And I’ll wait on Holden’s trust, too.” 

They sit quietly for a long time, sharing the scotch. Bill gazes around the fixtures of his new office with a sense of relief rising buoyantly in his chest. If he could have predicted this future a year ago - hell, two years ago - he wouldn’t have spent so many months conflicted and afraid. But that’s life, he figures. Just a series of mistakes and choices, learning to live with them, learning to grow with them. 

After Wendy drains her scotch, she turns to him with a perceptive gaze and warm smile. 

“You seem different. Happier.”

“Yeah, I think I am. Things have changed - for the better.”

“That’s good. I wasn’t sure what it would be like with you being gone for a year, but it almost feels as if you never left. How do you feel?” 

Bill takes another look at the office, the case files piling up on the corner of the desk, the paperwork mounting, the tasks always undone, the questions always waiting to be answered - but he doesn’t feel overwhelmed, only resolute.

He knocks back the last of his scotch, and returns Wendy’s smile. “Ready to get back to work.” 

  
  


***the end***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are at the conclusion! Thanks to everyone who read along and commented. This has been one of my favorite fics to write about these two, and have loved the response to it I got from everyone. I hope you like this ending, and I'm looking forward to publishing my next project and hearing your thoughts 💕


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